Returning to the classroom edgy for all

Three years ago I took what could be called a sabbatical from the classroom. I packed up my eighth-grade classroom into 12 neat boxes, loaned out my tattered posters, and transferred to the Mat-Su Schools Administrative Office, affectionately known as the Head Shed.

As it is with sabbaticals, I learned a lot. I witnessed what it takes to move a very large, politically managed and socially charged organization in a fair and just direction. My tenure at District Office taught me just how hard the various staffs at the Head Shed work: very. I am telling true when I say no one at District Office is sitting around eating bon-bons and taking long lunches. No, they are examples of some of the hardest, most efficient workers I know.

However, my longing for the classroom became unbearable. In April I was fortunate to be accepted as a sixth-grade teacher to fill the shoes of the amazing Mrs. Ament at Wasilla Middle. So, I packed my office at District into a pile of bittersweet boxes, collected the 12 dust-covered boxes from my garage, and moved into Room 126.

I am not too proud to admit I was afraid. Could I leave the classroom and really return? What if I had lost the touch? What if I was past my prime? What had been my cost in leaving the classroom?

I kept waiting for a moment of clarity, a glimpse into the ah-ha: the shoelaces that break when the time runs out and the bills are due; the glass that shatters in a thousand shards on top of black and white memories; the blink of an eye that captures fall shadows dripped upon the peaks. I needed a sign.

Then, at the last possible moment — clarity. Nervous sixth-graders — neatly combed heads, above polished hands, on top of clean clothes, next to brand new pencils — filled the room. Twenty-eight pairs of eyes looked at me like deer caught in the headlights on County Road 401. I grasped that their uncooperative lockers and looming gym class diminished, if not erased, anything of self-importance I might pretend to offer.

“What school did you go to last year?” I began. The room erupted into a common murmur. Their doe eyes left me to scan the room for familiar faces. My herd of deer moved away from the car and began to run: “Knik” “Snowshoe” “Iditarod” a whispered, “Meadow Lakes.”

Voila! Clarity. My work to keep them safe, to keep them strong, to keep them learning became real again. And, I knew instantly the cost to return:

• New laptop to replace the assigned laptop from the Head Shed — $1,000

• Acupuncture to decompress Head Shed stress — $600

• New posters for the classroom — $300

• Marilena’s help setting up classroom — $100

• Comfortable shoes — $95

• Classroom supplies — $60

• Band-Aids for the hole in my finger made with the new stapler — $5

• 58 chattering sixth-graders, raising hands, snapping binders — Priceless

Emily Forstner teaches sixth grade at Wasilla Middle School.