The Light In Their Eyes

I don’t know about other teachers, but this week has been difficult for me mentally and emotionally. Another school shooting. Another week of political promises to abolish the department of education. Another week of indifference and ennui on the part of my students. Another week of presidential candidates squawking that as a childless teacher I am “not physically invested in the future of America.” It’s more than I can take.

On Friday morning, I found myself driving to school in a melancholy stew, following the same worn path I have driven for almost twenty five years. As I drove into the soft, farm dotted sunrise, I felt so… meaningless. I felt so invisible and completely pointless. The desires of my heart felt so ignored. Deep in my heart, my thoughts echoed the words of Solomon, “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3)

I have worked as a music educator in the same small district for twenty four years, teaching sixth through twelfth grade students. For the most part, I have the same students in my class every year for six years. I’ve always seen that as a blessing… I truly get to know my students on a heart level and watch them grow. My passion as an educator is to help students connect to their own heart through music. However, as I have evolved as a person and a teacher, so has my mission. My greatest desire is that my students feel safe and known for exactly who they are, free to express their heart and understand the world around them.

Truly, the light in my students eyes has been the window through which I have seen their hearts grow and change over the years. Their eyes have communicated a shared sense of compassion, joy, and gratitude through song. From the twinkle as they performed the Bee Gee’s “How Deep Is Your Love,” the extensive love in Ben Fold’s “The Luckiest,” or the overwhelming sense of meaning in Wicked’s “For Good,” I have lasting memories thinking of my student’s eyes and treasuring those moments in my heart. Even the moments of sorrow… as we performed “Let There Be Peace On Earth” days after the Sandy Hook shooting to the sense of pure uncertainty as we sang Coldplay’s “The Scientist” the day we left for a “two week break” that turned into nine months at the start of the pandemic… it is the memory of their eyes that helped me feel that my teaching was working.

But now… it’s different.

Honestly, the efforts of a music educator are always a bit under appreciated, especially in a small town. It’s not a core subject and it’s not sports. Many see my job as fluffy or “not real.” I have always fought that, and I always will. But what I haven’t fought is the outright hatred from political figures. I haven’t always fought an army of people who think that teachers are to blame. I haven’t always been fighting to recover from an historic pandemic that has set us back further academically than we ever dreamed. I haven’t always been part of teachers leaving the field too weary to continue fighting. And I haven’t always been part of a classroom so full of mental brokenness and indifference that all of my love and effort cannot break through.

The light in their eyes has burned out. Every day, I stare out into a sea of darkness… eyes that are dim… if they bother to look at me at all. When I smile and say hello, their downcast glances at times don’t even acknowledge that I have spoken. When I communicate love and compassion, trying desperately to light a match, the light stays off. Their eyes stare right through me as if I am transparent. And when we sing, their eyes communicate in a blurry fog, unwilling or unable to take shape or form.

I am desperate to make a difference. I think I did once. I know I did. There are stories in my heart that let me know it mattered. But I’m not sure that is still true. I feel as if I am watering concrete and expecting it to grow. I am lighting matches and watching them burn out before igniting the sparks in their eyes.

I don’t want to believe it doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t want to think that I don’t matter anymore. My students mean so much to me, but I am running out of matches, and their light seems un-ignitable.