As I pack up my classroom (room 112), I find myself making some decisions about the items that have gathered dust for the past seventeen years. Books and knick-knacks, snarky posters, a herd of stuffed cows, and various other items that have taken up residence in this classroom over the years. There’s no actual theme or organization to the stuff accumulated in my room. I always say that my classroom resembles a TGI Friday’s with random junk displayed here and there.
Take, for instance, a doll leg that hangs from a green string on my whiteboard. It has no purpose whatsoever beyond being a conversation piece. Back in my early years of teaching at DHS, I taught a unit on Of Mice and Men. The final project was a creative task to demonstrate some aspect or theme of the novel. One student made a diorama using two Ken dolls posed to depict the book’s final scene with Ken Lenny kneeling and Ken George standing behind him, ready to shoot him with a paper gun. It was displayed in my room for several days. One day, however, it was broken. No one fessed up as to how or why. A part of one doll (the leg in question) lay in the middle of my floor. Rather than throw it away, I decided to use it for decoration. Before we had giant TVs, we had projectors with pull-down screens. I tied the leg to the screen’s cord, adding a small sign that read, “You’re pulling my leg.”
That leg reminds me of my many memories in this room. Some are great, some not so much. Unlike some teachers around here, I have been in this same room since day one (except for the move-out for the renovation in 2018 and the online learning year when I taught from my home office in my pajamas).
In this room, I began my teaching career at age 40 after 18 years of an office job. I was excited, idealistic, and fulfilling my long-standing dream of teaching high school English. My first classes were ninth graders. I played a game on the first day of my new career called “Ask Me a Question” to encourage students to get to know me. It turned out to be disappointing and dull all day until one cheeky ninth-grade boy asked, “How many men have you been with?” I don’t play that game anymore.
It was in this room that one sophomore girl with a nasty attitude called me a name that rhymes with “sandwich” to my face. She received a three-day suspension for that privilege. This was back in the days before reformative justice was a thing. I don’t even remember why she was angry with me, and she never apologized.
It was in this room that I taught Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Orwell, Dickens, novels, short stories, poetry, creative writing, journalism, rhetoric, writing essays, reading closely, reading for fun, grammar, communication, life skills, and how to be passionate about what you do.
It was in this room that I made students laugh, and they, in turn, have made me laugh almost every day. During the online learning time, I learned how much I missed that sound and how much that laughter meant to me. I realized how important it is to hear my students’ voices and was thrilled to return to this room the following year, even wearing masks.
In this room, I floundered early on with classroom management and how to deal with my students. One whiteboard in this room used to display a list called “Dell’Anno’s Doom,” onto which I placed names of naughty students who “owed” me time for whatever dumb little misdeed they committed. Gradually, my students taught me how to teach them. I found my teacher’s voice and swagger in this very room. I also learned that those mentor teachers from my training days were wrong when they said, “Don’t smile until Christmas,” as if to say that my students needed to earn my kindness. How sad that sounds now.
It was in this room that I cried with my students when accidents happened that took young lives (I’ve had to mourn for three students as well as two colleagues from my department in these seventeen years). Here, I’ve cried buckets over students who have struggled with personal tragedies and hugged students who needed comfort. I’ve also cried and hugged students who have made themselves and me proud with their successes.
This room has been my haven and my hiding place. I will miss its squeaky floorboards, which alert students that I am moving around. I will miss my view of the street, though the windows create a glare on my screen. My students tell me they will miss my strong wifi signal, something students have regularly commented on over the years. I wonder if the new room will feel as homey and comfortable.
In short, in this room, I learned to be a teacher, a mentor, and an emotional caregiver for my students. A surrogate mother (or crazy aunt) who frets over their futures and nags them about their grades. This room represents a lot of hard work, headaches, and more.
Which brings me back to that leg. When the TVs replaced the projectors, I removed the leg from the screen pull string. I intended to throw it away, but my students were outraged. They told me it was a part of the room. A permanent fixture. And so I tied it to the green string and put it on the whiteboard. I think, though, it is time to retire that particular item. Time to move forward and put old lessons away to make room for new ones.
