SEEN AND UNSEEN

 

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,

But what is unseen.

For what is seen is temporary,

But what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:18

 

I remember Miss Jackson.  In the middle 1950s she taught me in fifth grade.  I do not remember a classroom lesson, where my desk was, or any recess incidents.  I do remember the weekend Miss Jackson invited a number of us to join her for Saturday lunch at her parents’ home along the Kalamazoo River.  Before lunch, we walked near the river, picking up nature’s debris, investigating and inspecting.  We made conjectures and drew conclusions as we discovered a different classroom.  We just loved that Miss Jackson gave us extra time and established a relationship with us as a community of learners.  And I still remember her and that Saturday almost sixty years later.  Good teachers have that effect.

It is only now, after my own thirty years in the classroom, after a recent incident which has rocked my belief in central office/school board support of quality teachers and administrators that I wonder how she paid for lunch.  Personal use probably.  Did the money come from her own pocket? A fund at school?  PTA? Did she keep strict ledger records of the cost of the peanut butter, the magnifying glasses, the chocolate milk? I think not.  Good teachers are humanitarians, not accountants (unless they are in the math department.)

Quality teachers like my dear Miss Jackson give beyond classroom time over and over: weekends chaperoning, books for classroom libraries, after school tutoring: all ways of connecting and constructing memorable, inspiring relationships with their students.  The unseen.   Occasional monetary reimbursements are bonuses. The seen.

What does it say about a school district’s central office when given a nebulous money trail choses to acknowledge and pursue only accusations, assumptions and false conclusions?  A district who will not listen to its students who stand up for an educator who cares and connects but turns out to be a humanitarian, not an accountant?   The seen: vehement negativity instead of a careful crafting of an in house solution.

I have left the public classroom.  And although my disillusionment with what drives a school district’s central office is raw and deeply saddened, I never will abandon my love and dedication to children and their learning.  Through an afterschool program run by my church I continue to connect and construct memorable, inspiring relationships with kids: spending countless hours and money on books, peanut butter and love.  No accountant needed.