I’m not a crier. I’d say I cry on average about twice a year – once on Yom Kippur, and on about one other occasion. Today was that day.
I was at my parents’ for Rosh Hashana where they handed me a thick file folder of old documents, mostly report cards going back to SK (age 5). I read through it quickly, and was amazed by two things. The first was that I literally have no memory of my Judaic Studies teachers from SK through Grade 4. Their names don’t even ring a bell! General Studies was different – I had at least some memory of each one, or at least their name. Some much more. I’m not sure what this black hole implies, but at the very least, it tells me that there was nothing there worth remembering (though I have no reason to think anything was so negative that it was repressed).
The second was the degree to which my childhood memories of school and teachers seemed to match what I saw in that brief overview of my past, which is to say – not a positive one. This is not about my performance, which was mostly decent, sometimes less so, and even more rarely better than decent. It also wasn’t’ about behavior – there were very few comments on that. It’s about how the teachers saw me through the comments they made, and how closely that correlated to my dislike of school.
Today I took more time to read the comments more thoroughly, and that’s why I started to cry. It’s not that it was all bad – not at all. But the cumulative experience of reading so many phrases like: “satisfactory progress,” “greater concentration,” “more attention to grammar and spelling,” “more attention to handwriting,” “Rafi needs to apply himself consistently,” “a more serious attitude is required, “ greater effort is required” (did teachers get paid extra for each time they used this one?), and more. The weight of it was too much, and the tears came out for the child I was that had to bear all of this, the cumulative weight of so much negativity at worst, or apathy at best. I cried for the adult who at 48 with a PhD (plus a few other degrees, certificates, and a leadership job in a large school) who still can’t let go of their sense of me, formed over so many years and so many comments. I clearly emerged as someone who loves learning and school, but most of these earlier years didn’t feel like learning at all.
Curious what someone else’s experience was like, I asked a colleague what her memory of her report cards was like. I imagined, and I was right, that both her comments and marks were all positive (she’s bright, capable, and easy going in a way I was clearly not). But, she noted, every report card commented that she should participate more in class. This bothered her tremendously, as she is a person who processes internally, and never understood why this was an expectation that needed to be mentioned. Not everyone is fit for the box of school, she said (and then noted the irony of both my academic accomplishments and present job, given what I told her about my report cards and how I felt about school).
But I don’t think it’s exactly about the box of school. Yes, we differentiate; yes, there are limits to that differentiation especially when there are 25 students in a class; and yes, there are structures at school that make it hard for some kids. But I think that’s a smaller part of the story. I think at the core, too many teachers could only see the deficits in me and no further. No wonder I have the sense of being less-than.
Here are two comments from one of the wonderful teachers, Mrs. Brown z’l, my Grade 8 General Studies teacher, that I found so thoughtfully articulated. “Rafi has not put forth a lot of effort this term and therefore his test results are lower. He has very good math ability which I hope he will develop in future years.” She didn’t just comment on what was missing, but what was possible. And more from Mrs. Brown: “Rafi is approaching A work (with details about why). Rafi must learn to speak out less, though I wouldn’t want to see his intensification lessen.” I’m almost there, she said, and told me what I need to do to improve, rather than why I deserve a lower mark. True, I speak too much, but she sees the positive place that it comes from (or at least framed it that way – credit to her).
Perhaps it’s best summed up in what Bonnie Lescz, an amazing teacher, once told me, “I teach students, not math.” Looking back, it didn’t feel like all my teachers knew they were teaching children.
There is one happy coda from all this. When I was looking through my report cards on Rosh Hashana I mentioned to my ten year old daughter that I really didn’t like school as a kid. Her response, “Oh Daddy, I do.” Music to my heart, and gratitude to her Netivot teachers.