Farewell Friday: A Portrait of Beloved Community

On the penultimate Friday night of the school year, I gathered with about 10 colleagues from my school to bid farewell to four beloved members--2 middle school teachers and 2 high school teachers--of the science department. After enjoying some food and socializing, what began as a time of reflecting on the significant contributions of these four teachers blossomed into an amazing time during which words of vulnerability, encouragement and thanksgiving were shared by all of us about each other. Joyful laughter and heartrending tears rang out into the night alternately. Fears, disappointments, admiration, struggles, hopes and appreciation were all shared with great intimacy that night. The significance of what happened that night is profound and I will never forget it.

For over two hours as we either fought back our tears or just let them flow, we heard how these four colleagues, along with the rest of us, had existed as a community that had challenged, supported, encouraged and engaged each other so meaningfully over the past few years. Even though most of us had only worked together for about five years, the tears and heartache expressed that evening reflected a level of intimacy usually only found (if ever) in professional relationships forged over decades. Some people work for 30 years in a profession and never achieve the depth of relationships that I have found with my current colleagues--so how did it come to be this way?

I think that there is something about the sticky mess that is public education (at least at my school) and something about working with kids that provides the conditions necessary to get to that Friday night. How does one deal with a 15 year-old who plans to drop out of school at age 16 by oneself? How does one deal with parental accusations of incompetence by oneself? How does one deal with high stress and low pay (and the commensurate feeling of being undervalued) by oneself? How does one deal with a 16 year-old student who can't pass Algebra I but who plans to become an actuary by oneself? How does one deal with accusations of racist favoritism by oneself? How does one deal with endless bureaucratic procedures--that may actually inhibit student learning--but which seem designed solely to limit litigation, by oneself? How does one deal with the implications of families with means fleeing the school system you work for in favor of private schools by oneself? How does one deal with the interpersonal interactions with 120 adolescents every day for 180 days by oneself? The answer, I think, is that one can't deal with such things by oneself. Survival necessitates community. The bonds between my fellow teachers and me were forged as we worked side-by-side in a profession that demands your heart and soul; we developed an intimate interdependence that enabled us to sustain each other through the emotion-filled and often heart-wrenching highs and lows that are altogether common in teaching.

My colleagues have poured their lives out into their students and their school. They are the smartest, most passionate, most caring, most interesting and sometimes the most discouraged people I have ever met. I am honored to have worked beside them--their self-sacrifice, their commitment to social justice, their concern for helping kids, their innovative and creative pedagogies, their leadership and vision, and their sensitive hearts certainly have made me a better teacher and more importantly, a better person. I was blessed to experience that Friday night with my fellow teachers and dear friends and am even more blessed to have experienced the days, weeks, months and years leading up to it. I am thankful to have participated in and benefited from the building of such an intimate community of adults--to love and be loved so deeply by the people with whom you work is truly a gift.