Vulnerability

Dear friend,

Arriving at the school yesterday morning I was greeted by groups of students.

“Sir” they call teachers miss and sir in our school, “Sir why are you leaving?”

I’d forgotten that the school’s policy is to send out a letter with the names of staff who are moving on and so the job of informing the kids was done for me. The day unfolded with me explaining my desire to spend more time with Chiara, accompanying one another in our travels. You could see them relax. They did the maths, each group, the same message, that I’d been teaching there many years before their birth, they got it.

“But why couldn’t you wait until we leave?”

At times waves of sadness welled up inside and I suppressed tears that clambered up from my heart to my eyes. The windows of the soul.

I wished that these were the children of family and friends and that we’d keep in contact, but that’s not the way the teacher student relationship works. The relationship is formalised to protect the children from potential abuses.

To do your job well as a teacher you must form appropriate relationships with your students. There are healthy boundaries and it’s your job to know what those boundaries are.

And yet I’ll not get to see them grow, and right now that’s difficult for me. I’m happy for it also. I count it as a success. To care enough so that it hurts. The brittle outer shell that used to encase me is worn thin, so that somehow, over the years I’ve developed a tolerance for my own emotional vulnerability.

It’s hard to comprehend what a privilege it is to serve a community as a teacher. The richness of the connections you make with generations of young people. It’s an experience that served me well, helped me to grow and mature, and I’ll keep on teaching in one way or another, but my time within the formal educational system is up. At least for now.

It’s also a relief.

There’s the paradox again.

I’ll miss many of the things some of my colleagues have told me they find a burden.

Parent’s evening for example. They can be exhausting seeing family after family, but I loved meeting them, connecting with the wider community. You see genetics. Sometimes a kid looks just like their mother or just like their father. Other times it’s a mix.

Some families are so cool your heart bursts and other times you wish there were programmes for parents to help them understand what a powerfully negative effect their shaming of their kids is having. You do what you can within the limits of your role.

They say teaching is about hearts and minds and that’s true. It’s also true that we are all teaching and learning all of the time. The way we show up in the world, embracing our vulnerability as best we can. Clinging to kindness as a principle by which we live. It’s not so much what we say that matters as the example we provide of a humane being in a confusing, conflicted and ever changing world.

We come here to learn.

The greatest achievement of a life time is the realisation of our intimate connection with life itself. You meet soul’s here at different stages of their journey. Some are completely unaware of a spiritual dimension, others fully awake to it.

The key is not to judge.

Forgive others for their mistakes. To be entranced by only the physical dimension of life is phase we all must pass through.

I’m thankful to the thousands of kids who have been my teachers over the years.

Especially those who have made me look at my prejudices and assumptions and to choose again.

Choosing love.

What else can we do if love is what we want?

Till tomorrow

Love

Mikey