On teaching

(Note: predictably, I've buried the lede.)

Above: a photo from my old classroom in Oregon, IL, a former industrial arts room where I taught high school art for eleven years.  This was the biggest class I had ever taught, and my camera was unable to capture the students beyond the left side of the photo and the half-dozen advanced students I sequestered in an unused office across the hall.  I somehow managed to teach 40 teenagers during that after-lunch class.  The numbers on the photo were added for a long-forgotten Livejournal entry I wrote about my room, and I'm sure it went something like this:

1. Corner of black and white U2 poster, ca. 2001.

2. Old supply lockers we painted to resemble paintings by Picasso.  Rumor has it that my successor got rid of them as soon as she moved in, which is a shame because the resemblance was uncanny.

3. Mysterious and giant taxidermied golden eagle (I think) that was in the room when I started teaching; I had the kids draw it every once in a while.

4. Probably uninsulated concrete blocks on two exposed walls ensured that the room was ice cold in the winter.

5. Beloved bulletin board that I always crammed with art, music, and movie posters.  (Pink Floyd provided an easy colors-of-the-spectrum visual aid; also on the board that year were The Beatles, Super Fly, The Clash, Taxi Driver, Fargo, and We Can Do It.)

6. Terrible farmer's milkin' stools provided no back support.  Somebody donated an old church pew for extra seating under the bulletin board, and I also had a cafeteria table way in the corner, where the bad kids always wanted to sit, thus making it extra hard for me to get to them.

7. Here's one of the busted-up artist desks we bought that fell apart within a few years, unable to deal with the wear and tear this many kids managed to dish out on a daily basis.  I made repairs with duct tape.

Overcrowding and underfunding were the main reasons I took the job at Unity High School in southern Champaign County, with its immaculate building and an art room that was designed to be an art room.

I taught at Unity for six years before taking this year off to concentrate on painting.  And after giving the matter a lot of thought, I've decided to continue to concentrate on painting.  I am going to turn in my letter of resignation to my principal and revisit my now-former students and colleagues this afternoon, and I hope they will understand.

I had intended to return to my job during the 2011-12 school year, but this fall's cancer scare shook me to my core.  I've already written so much about it. Suffice it to say that it crystallized my feelings about my need to paint.  When I thought about the prospect of cancer and especially dying from cancer, I felt concern for two things: my husband/family and the pictures I would never get to paint, future paintings I had been reserving for summer vacations and my retirement years.  I didn't think about the classes I'd never get to teach, not even once. 

The idea that I might die before I'd finally get to paint seemed so unfair, not to mention the fact that it might happen during a time of happiness and love after so many years of loneliness.  Luckily my cancer scare turned out to be nothing, but before I could know this, I had the entire month of September to meditate on WHAT IF.

I've also been thinking about my relatives.  My mother's side of the family is extremely long-lived, but my father's side...not so much.  When I remember my uncle Dale, his hands and body plagued by the tremors of Parkinson's, or my aunt Elaine, whose vision faded until she was nearly blind, I am reminded that painting is a physical activity.  Obviously it takes a freakishly steady hand and the eyesight of an eagle to produce a painting like this one...

...and just like everybody else, I have been given no guarantee that my hand and my eyes will remain in their current condition for the rest of my life. 

(Above: the view from my OHS classroom.  UHS did not have a view.)

At its best, teaching is outrageously fulfilling and even heroic.  Former students tell me that I changed their lives.  I was the only reason they wanted to come to school.  I made them laugh and let them know that somebody cared about them during the toughest years of their lives.  They see me buying groceries and shriek with joy, fawning over me as if I'm a rock star.  They leave messages for me on Facebook in all caps and studded with multiple exclamation points.  I've watched these kids go on to become artists and parents and doctors and musicians and even teachers, and I think of these fine people with an aching fondness.  (Below, a mural my OHS students and I painted of some of the good kids.)

At its worst, teaching is fraught with a factory-like repetition and even humiliation.  As I've said before, during any given school year I learned to expect two events so heartwarming that I'd be moved to tears, and two events so demoralizing that I'd question why I chose to be a teacher in the first place.  I've been robbed, stalked, harassed, pushed into lockers, accused of racism and, conversely, had my room ransacked and decorated with Confederate flags by kids who didn't agree with my views about equality.  I've dealt with more than my fair share of drug addicts, sociopaths, alcoholics, bullies, bigots, future criminals, and just plain assholes. 

And then there are the well-meaning but headbashingly tactless students.  A couple of years ago I was secretly mourning the fact that Jeff and I are unable to have biological children.  One day I made the critical error of tucking in a shirt that probably shouldn't have been tucked in and standing with less-than-perfect posture while taking attendance.  This prompted a cluster of perfectly sweet but mostly clueless 8th grade girls to send a representative to my desk to ask me if I was pregnant.  "Um, no, but thank you so much for asking," I told her.  Later the girls came to me, very sorry and one on the verge of tears.  I turned the whole thing into a teachable moment.  But did this little incident screw up my body image for a very long time, even to this day?  Of course it did.

My dad was a P.E. teacher and coach.  He was (and is) an amazing athlete.  He tried out for the Chicago White Sox as a pitcher, but they cut him in favor of a bigger guy.  Dad went into teaching for the same reason that I did: financial independence.  Sort of.  It's not like the job pays all that much, but at least we were able to be around the activities we loved and make an okay living off our somewhat unmarketable skills.  (And most importantly, since he was a teacher and a father, Dad didn't have to go to Vietnam.) 

But here's the thing that depressed us both: we could demonstrate our unmarketable skills, but we couldn't actually practice them for real.  Instead we had to watch and teach other people how to do the things that we loved and could do better ourselves.  We were jealous of our students because they were the ones who got to play baseball, and they were the ones who got to paint.  We came up with great activities to help them learn how to do things that seemed to come to us effortlessly.  And the vast majority of them liked but didn't love baseball and painting the way we did, and lots of them sucked at baseball and painting.  And a few of them whined and refused to try, and those were the ones that killed us.  It was insulting, and I gave all of my students 17 years of my creative life.  Dad gave his students 40.

This fall, as I've finally been able to paint every day for hours and hours, I feel such peace.  Life as an artist is not without its own special humiliations, but for the first time in 36 years, my life is not controlled by bells.  I don't have to drive 44 miles a day; instead I walk up 14 steps to get to my job.  Nobody asks me if they can go to the bathroom.  It's blissfully quiet.  I don't have to put on a Miss Eddington costume.  I can eat an actual lunch.  I have windows.  My brain is not cluttered with a catalog of 51,000 student art projects and 4,000 names (conservative career estimates).  This is exactly what I am supposed to be doing, I think to myself as I sit down to paint.  I couldn't do this without Jeff's support, and I thank him so much for helping me take these first baby steps into my life's third act, which I hope will be long, productive, maybe even prosperous, and very, very healthy.

Comments

[Mel]

Love this. Good for you! You are beautiful inside and out and deserve to do what you were born to do...Much love and support,

[Melinda]

Dammit, Kelly! You've choked me the hell up. I'm so happy for you. Welcome to the life you were born to live.

[Kelly]

Thanks to both Mels-es! You both mean so much to me.

[Jay Rogers]

Welcome home!

[Hil]

Hopefully the books will read "and then she entered the most productive period of her career" and when all is said and done. You might even find teaching moments that come up a lot more freeing too. When my dad changed careers it seemed like he still got to do a lot of the thing he liked without having all the bad things that comes with it being a job.

[Kelly]

Perfect comment, Mr. Rogers. It's been quite a day. :)

Hil, you were always one of my favorites, and after you graduated I missed you so much that I had to find "The New Hil." Luckily a girl named Amanda stepped up and, while no one could truly replace you, she kind of became The New Hil, but sadly no one was been able to take your places. You and Amanda are basically sisters in my mind. http://www.amandameeks.com
/random nostalgia

[Caroline]

The fact is, I took a lot of art classes and we talked quite a bit, and I never had any idea you had serious artistic interests and as much talent as you do. That alone makes this the most right and compelling decision you could be fortunate enough to get to make. Your description of the parallel talents and careers of you and your father is an idea I've never heard that makes me reflect with sadness on many of my most valued instructors.

Also, as much as I try to fight it, seeing that crumbling parking lot and lines of pickup trucks sparks some nostalgia. This must be because we had to walk through it to get from the band room to the football field.

[The Beautiful Kind]

Thank you for such personal posts. Congratulations on your decision to give birth to beauty every day. The world is better for it.

[Deanna]

Good for you Kelly! You've made the right choice, life is too short to not spend it doing what you love - your Uncle Dale & Aunt Elaine would be proud!

[Rachel]

Good for you! It encourages me to read about what you're doing. Someday I hope to make a living being an artist. Right now I'm just a college graduate with an art degree working in a gift shop part time. I'm also a stray U2 fan that wanders in here once in a while. :)

[Hil]

I really enjoyed our art classes also. Of course I drew during my other classes too *shh* but having a place to draw everyday where I wasn't considered too much of a weirdo for doing it was nice. You, Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Davis were the only people who made me feel like I wasn't wasting my time there. I should have come back for a visit, but things changed pretty fast there after I left I think. (http://youtu.be/WgLr6qlpec4) And the day I did try to visit your ceiling collapsed...message received cosmos. (http://youtu.be/ojydNb3Lrrs)

[Dm]

I am so happy that you get the chance to do what you enjoy in life. You are a very lucky person. Not everyone does what they truly enjoy in life. I like your honesty when u write about ur teaching experience.

[GinaE]

I'm so happy for you, Kelly. Thank you for sharing this in such a touching post. I am having a similar struggle. After being layed off my job, I have felt guilty for not being able to bring in a portion of the home income, but at the same time feeling such a huge weight off my shoulders at not having to go to a job I realize I didn't like going to for years.

[Kirsten]

Thank you for sharing yet again your innermost thoughts and feelings. I wish you all the best in your new freedom to create, and I still intent to one day own an original Kelly Eddington!

[jh]

But aren't you ever afraid you'll slowly become anti-social from so little human contact everyday?

[Anna]

What beautiful and downright humbling post. You, Kelly, get to do what so many only dream about-that is to live your life as you know it SHOULD be. I'm in awe of your decision (and damn it, it is the right one!!!).

[Elizabeth Mackey]

Two thumbs up for you decision Kelly. You shared your gift by teaching, now you can share it another way that is fulfilling to yourself. !! Bravo to you, and I look forward to seeing more of your paintings through your blog.
I followed you here from the U2 blog, because of your incredible talent, and I'm always amazed at how you take a medium, that I find very intimidating, to such controlled beauty.
You ROCK!!

[Sunwolf Sunwolf]

This is one of the most apt, provocative, and confirming essays on teaching that I've read [INSERT low bow of gratitude approximately HERE]. It's the end of my university's academic quarter, I'm grading finals. Your words confirm for me the sadness, bumps, bruises of teaching, even while acknowledging the delights. And yet, I'm a writer and bemoan the tiny corners left of my life in which to write. Painting with words, I expect.

Showers of iridescent confetti at your doorstep. {And head scratches for the feline beings.}

Dr. SunWolf, who occasionally twitters:
@WordWhispers
@TheSocialBrain

[bj]

Good for you Kelly. Should you ever get the penchant for teaching, try an adjunct position at any nearby university/college. The schedules are very flexible. They would love to have you and your peers would be professional artists.