Somewhere between Anthony Michal Hall and Judd Nelson

As a student, it becomes difficult to look past the high heels and briefcases that define teachers. Young or old, teachers seem to be in such a vastly different world than the one I live in. I’ve never had the teacher notorious for cancelling classes. Instead, I have the ones who are adamant about coming to class even when bad weather hits or who schedules an assignment over Spring Break. My teachers also never seem to be sick, and even if they are sick, they are excited to come and teach while spreading their lovely germs to the rest of the class. All in all, my teachers have never come across as all-human. For the most part, they appear the same, with 4 limbs and 5 digits on each of those limbs, a nose for breathing, and eyes for winking. Their ears probably get waxy build up and they probably get blisters on their feet. Yet, there is always something off, something missing, something making them a little not human.

That changed today, a little bit. We were given a creative interview assignment for a creative class. As three distinct groups, the class was supposed to ask questions based on “family,” “job and education,” and “personal” towards the teacher. The questions were rather predictable, with a few curveballs along the way, so it wasn’t the interviewers that led to my humanistic revelation. Instead, it was the honesty of the answers. Mrs. Megan Robertson-Hurley entered the classroom and was able to show the students that teachers have lives, with pasts and futures. After questions about how she met her husband, and what schools she attended, and the worst experience as a teacher, she began to tangent off into stories of her life She offered up the story of how one of her students began to believe she and he were Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, and admits, with a nervous laugh, how “that was pretty uncomfortable”. It was the ending to her stalker-student narrative that finally made something click. ‘I was sitting on a stoop waiting for a doctor’s appointment,’ which triggered in my brain that teachers got sick and had check-ups, ‘when I saw this tall shadow.’ A tall shadow stalker. She had to explain to him how this was “not working” for her, which resulted in a framed, personal eulogy being shipped to her mother’s address. Then it hit. The eulogy mattered because it freaked her the fuck out, because she’s gonna have one too.

Teachers have parents they’re born to; teachers have graves they’re buried into. Teachers are people too. From that moment forth, I listened intently as she explained that in her marriage with Brian there have “been lots of good parts. I like him. He’s my friend,” but that she hates splitting holidays between Oregon and New Jersey. How she is “nervous about little towns,” but doesn’t want to raise her kids in a big city like New York or Chicago. How she was too scared to get a nose piercing herself in college, but after clever convincing, she managed to get her little sister, Sarah, to partake. “Yes!” she exclaimed with an “alright, I kicked butt” type motion of her elbow. She even has faults to admit. After a “click, click, click” sound of her tongue, she proudly announces “I’m really bad about being on time. My mom is an exceptionally timely person” so for her 18th birthday, she got a HUGE clock as a replacement. I could no longer see the teacher, but instead saw the person who had a childhood’s worth of memories and a future full of plans. An interview process assignment led to a teacher becoming a daughter who chose to become a wife who is an interesting older sister who would, if she had to choose, “position myself somewhere between the brain and the criminal”.