I had been reading student journals and class evaluations all morning and on into the early afternoon when one stopped me dead in my tracks. I haven’t done much since except read it over and over and over. Each time the tears make it as difficult to read as the last time. I’ve been grasping every word, sometimes touching the page with my fingertips. My office has seemed very warm. How do I share with you how I feel at this very moment. Words like uplifted, fulfilled, satisfied, proud, humble just seem hollow, lifeless, meaningless, maybe even trite. I’m sure there’s a turn of a phrase or catchy word out there for this occasion, but I’m really at a loss of words. So, I think I should just let you listen to my silence as you read this student’s entry:

In all my 16 years of being a student I have never run
across a teacher who thought and treated me much more
than as a piece of black female shit. But you cared
enough about me to give me for the first time what no
other teacher did: respect, a chance to say what was on
my mind and above all else, love. You gave me a chance
to realize I was capable of succeeding and capable of
learning. You gave me confidence that all my other
teachers seemed to suck out of me like blood-sucking
leeches. You lifted me up when so many others stomped me
into the ground. So, I want to personally thank you for
teaching me so much history, for believing in me and also
for teaching me to believe in myself….

Do you know when you did that the most? You probably
don’t remember. It probably seemed so unimportant. But
it was like an event for me. It started when we were
discussing a tid-bit in class that led to an argument
about legalizing marijuana and I got up and told the
class that I smoked to get high and feel good and that
there was nothing wrong with it. A few hours later you
passed me near the fountain at the library. You stopped
and all you said was that you wanted me to think about
that smoking was a roundtrip, you always come back to the
low after the high, you always come back to what you’re
running from. The pain always comes back. But believing
in myself is a high like nothing else for getting rid of
the hurt. You said it with such concern and sincerity
that one of my friends with me called you a soapy sap.
I thought it was so jerky too and didn’t think about it.
Then a few days later when you were walking into the
Student Union and I asked you to have a picture button
made with me, you didn’t run away like you didn’t want to
be seen with a nigger pothead. I don’t think you thought
much about doing it except having some crazy fun. You
probably didn’t think it was all that important, but that
was serious shit to me. You don’t know how much that
picture of us now means to me. After we had it made, I
went to my room and looked at that picture and couldn’t
stop looking and thought that you didn’t have to do
anything like that. You could have thought that I was a
loser like everyone else thought and like I thought. And
I started crying, I couldn’t stop crying for hours. I
realized how unhappy I was and getting high was my way of
getting rid of my pain. I see how the pain always came
back like you said. I want you to know that I realized
I had a problem with drugs, but after I admitted to
smoking a bunch of people came up to me to talk. They
didn’t yell at me or give me any religious holier and
thou crap. They wanted to help and told me about
themselves. And some were white! They and especially
you made me realize that the life I was living was not my
own. I studied, worked, ate and slept around getting
high. I made myself miserable and thought that smoking
would make it all better. It was just making me more
miserable.

I am proud of the fact that I worked hard in this class
and learned a lot. I learned to speak my mind without
being disrespectful and to listen. I have learned to
meet deadlines. I have learned to depend on my triad
members. That was the hardest part for me, depending on
someone else to come through. But I learned to trust.
But, you know, the best part of all that was that they
trusted and depended on me. One time I let them down and
it was the worst feeling in the world. I cried as I
apologized, and they understood and forgave me! Me!!

I want you to know that I don’t need weed now to be
happy. I haven’t had one in four weeks now. I am damn
proud of me and you should be of yourself. You’re right,
succeeding is my natural high. It feels damn good to be
a part of something positive.

If anyone gives you any shit or makes fun of you because
of the way you are and how you teach, send them to me.
I’ll tell them that it doesn’t take a whole lot to open
a book and teach a lesson in front of a class, but it
takes a lot of work, a lot of hard work, and tenderness
to open a mind and educate a soul. I’ll show them know
the power of caring.

I saw her a while ago. We didn’t say much. She knew that I had read her journal. We just hugged and wished each other a joyous holiday. I told her if she ever felt she was faltering she knew where she could come and get a Tootsie Pop. She said she’d come by for a Tootsie Pop anyway. She gave me permission to share her words and feelings in the hope that, as she said,….. Well, you decide what she said.
That picture button, which I thought up until today was cute and which I threw carelessly in my dresser drawer, I went home to retrieve and now has an honored place among my sacred objects of teaching in my office and a reminder of the power of caring.

Make it a good day.

–Louis–