Everything matters

It will not be surprising to know that I have seen The Sound of Music many, oh so many, times. It's not just that I was named after it and that it's still unusual to hear my name spoken on screen, but I do love it. The production is beautiful, the acting is great and the idea of resisting evil through a thing so sublime as music is something I love. My favorite song in the movie isn't the one you will think; I like Sixteen Going on Seventeen, but it lacks true relevance in my overall life. The song I love the most is Something Good. I understand that song intimately. There is sweetness here: "Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could. So, somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good."

It is that time again: another semester has ended. As usual, it is bittersweet because, as usual, I had such phenomenal students. I am forever humbled by them and I cannot help but wonder what I ever did to deserve them. As I have begun to do, I gave them each a personal note to tell them how much I value them and to make sure they understand that they will forever be a part of me. It took me five hours to write fourteen notes; it takes me that long every semester, though I usually don't do it all at once as I did this time. It is always easy to express how dear they are to me, but it isn't always easy to find the right words to make sure they understand their tremendous value. They are more valuable than they know.

I worry about my students and I wonder if they will be OK. I would have them never feel pain, never want for anything in life, as silly as that is. They are not, after all, my children; they have parents of their own. Yet, I believe I have a part in their growing, if only a small one. The kicker is, they have an equal part in mine.

There will never be a time when knowing that I had given a student the nicest card he had ever received is not profoundly meaningful. It hurts me to know that he has reached his late teens? early twenties? and has not had the simple kindness of supportive words. In fact, it pained me so much that I cried when I told my mom about it an hour later and my husband two days later. The tears didn't last, as they should not have; for, those were tears of recognition of what was, not what is. I am simply the taste of what he will and should have in life from anyone who is able to recognize his tremendous promise. The truth is, all of my students deserve that recognition. I'm trying really hard not to go on and on (too late) about them, but it's simply unrealistic to expect anything else.

The thing that really gets me is this: what could I have possibly done to deserve these students? I can't quite wrap my head around that idea. It reminds me of the Sound of Music song, of course. I have not always acted as I should, as we all do not; but I have had some tremendous luck in my life. Luck that I did nothing to deserve, frankly. I suppose it's true that there is no such thing as "fair" when so much is left to chance. Justice would really be a human construct, then, and all of our entitlements nothing more than what we choose to make of them. I choose to make the current generation my project and my hope.

Let me make something clear: all of this gushing about students over and over and the harping on their promise might be maudlin and sappy, but it is tremendously important to me that the world understands the resource we all have in the current generation. My students are representatives of what is best in their generation and what we could all benefit from in public and private life. I trust them to carry on our world and to make it better, make the progress clean. I want people to realize that in recognizing these people, we recognize ourselves. We allow for them to be as brash, elastic and fertile as we once were. We allow them to be the spring in our forward motion and we trust them to know the correct direction. We owe them that for bringing them here in the first place.

Damn, I miss them already.

I wrote the above two days ago when the semester ended. I have to add one more note: Two students who have both taken other classes from me just called me from the Metallica concert to let me hear a bit of it. It was great! They were screaming and singing along while I was screaming with them. How could you not love kids who do such a thing?!

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