The Chalk on the Walk

Yesterday was the first day of school, and I have to admit I'd been dreading its arrival. I truly love my job, and once the school year is underway I get completely engrossed in the pleasures and challenges of teaching, but the transition from slack summer to the crazed academic year can be rough. And this summer my Old Man and I were out of town until literally the day before my school-related duties began, which gave that rough ride an additional element of vertigo.

But when I got to school yesterday, as I walked my bike up to the crooked campus building where my office is located, I saw this chalking on the sidewalk outside:



I was immediately very moved. There was something about the phrasing of the statement and the shape of the letters that added poignance to the tribute. (The final phrase, the last couple of words smudged by the time a fellow teacher snapped this picture, are "never would have made it.") My office is in the building that houses all of the offices for the English and Fine Arts departments at my school. As I read the chalk message, I felt a kinship with my colleagues in that building that I hadn't a moment before, and I felt in my bones how vitally important our job is. I recalled the student I'd counseled back in my second year of teaching, a girl who'd been abused by her brother and was planning her to take her own life, whom I'd met with daily during my prep period and worried about for years after I left that job and city. And I recalled how I felt when, six years later, I got a letter from her letting me know that she was okay, that she was in college, that things were much better, and that she credited me with helping to save her life.

I don't know what the phrase "never would have made it" means to our anonymous chalker, but I do know that being a teacher is a rare honor and a fearsome responsibility. We often have no idea whether we've had an effect, for good or for bad, on a student once she leaves our classroom for the last time. But in a world that can be very alienating, scary, and cold, to do our jobs with kindness and compassion clearly makes a difference.

And, after that heartening early morning experience, I had an exceptionally good first day of school.