Just a Middle School Teacher
Content Warning: brief mention of child abuse and suicidal ideation
It’s 315 AM and meaningful sleep continues to evade me. I turn on the computer and chug some coffee, shielding my eyes from the piercing light of dual computer monitors coming online. Fueled by muscle memory and a fresh injection of caffeine, I click open my email and find the usual: a handful of junk emails from publishing houses, that morning’s Covid screener, and a message from Angelika.
I had a feeling she might have sent me something over the weekend. We’d been emailing each other sporadically for a few weeks. Her most recent emails had been about her depression, so I tried to respond to them as soon as I got them.
“HI! XD To be perfectly honest, you’re one of the few people who keeps me going. I’ve been crying so much lately and I can’t seem to sleep at night anymore. Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m going to do anything lolll? I’m just saying you give me something to look forward to.”
I’m not gonna lie; it feels good to be a source of light for a student. It’s also incredibly sad. I’m pretty great, but children’s lives should be filled with supportive and caring adults.
Angelika isn’t an isolated case, either. All throughout this last year of pandemic school I had multiple students emailing me with similar messages.
“My parents are screaming at each other and they won’t stop and it keeps getting worse.”
“I can’t stop sleeping during the day. I’m so tired all of the time and I just want to sleep.”
“Something is wrong with my dad but I can’t tell you because I’m afraid of the police getting involved.”
These messages are a lot to hold. They burrow deep, placing intense demands on my long depleted batteries (and sometimes threatening to reopen my own past wounds). I can’t help but sense repositories of trauma behind these emails. Unknowable reservoirs brimming with pain, teenage confusion, and down-but-not-out resiliency.
The back of my mind is already working through the flowchart of what comes next. First, I have to reply. Then I need to figure out if I’m legally required to tell any state agencies like the Department of Social Services. Then I’ll alert my school’s counseling department and contact the kid’s family. Lastly, I should run through some ideas for what I’ll say next time I see Angelika in school. I gotta be intentional and sensitive, and that means putting in some forethought.
I take a deep breath, try to tap into my higher self, and begin writing a response that has to be both general yet specific. Some words of kindness that skirt the increasingly porous barrier between saying too little and saying too much. Whatever I write also has to withstand the public scrutiny of a potential FOIA request. And it has to be something that I would feel comfortable reading aloud to my administration and the kid’s family. (This gets especially dicey when it’s the kid’s family who is causing the pain.)
“HEEEEEY, ANGELIKA! Thanks for letting me know what’s been going on. I had a feeling things might be getting pretty bad. First, please know how much I and your other teachers and friends love you. I have seen the way you make your friends laugh and how they smile when you enter the classroom. Our lives are so much better with you in them. I’m obviously not a trained therapist, but I am here for you always. I see your light and I see your brilliance. I know that with time you will see them, too. Maybe not now, but it will happen. Trust me. Keep breathing and loving yourself unconditionally.”
I read the message over a few times. Even though I tell my students I love them constantly, that there are different kinds of love, and that my love for them comes from a deep investment in their growth as human beings, it still feels strange to say it. I guess everything else is okay. To be honest, I don’t know if the room does light up when Angelika comes in. But it should. And in a perfect world, a place where nothing hurts and everyone gets what they need, every space where children go would be luminescent from the combined wattages of a thousand spirits burning bright. Until then, I’ll continue to do what I can.
Light from the outside world is now peaking into the window next to me, and my brain has started compiling lists of everything that needs to get done today. I hit “send” and try to remind myself that I’m neither a trained therapist nor a savior. Just a middle school teacher.
