Teaching

I have a confession to make. I’m an “intellectual stalker.” Let me explain. In her recent book “White Heat,” author Brenda Wineapple quotes Emily Dickinson in a letter addressed to Thomas Wentworth Higginson. “Are you too occupied to tell me if my verse is alive?” Dickinson asked. The poet was coyly asking Higginson for his literary advice. She wanted him to acknowledge whether or not she had anything to offer. At the time, Higginson was the more famous writer.

Like many, if not most, I had a rough first year as a teacher.  I was 21 years old and full of passion and desire but little else. I had survived student teaching on the Navajo Reservation for six months, but arrived on the other side of that experience with much to learn. I was teaching two-hour blocks of seventh-grade history and English. I was struggling on almost every level in almost every area. 

A couple of nights ago, I took my daughter to Chuck-E-Cheese, a tradition of ours when her other mother is out of town. We play skee-ball to win long rows of tickets that we later exchange for plastic toys and stickers. We play — it’s our way of lessening how much we miss the Mom who’s not with us.

This particular evening something besides the blinking lights of games caught my eye, though.