It is often stated that teachers learn just as much from their students as the students learn from teachers. Being a student-teacher in my final semester of college, I often wonder where I will find proof of this. Is it in their cultural idiosyncrasies? Or their flipping water bottles on tables? Or on their political ideas regardless of the fact that they are too young to vote? Although these aforementioned things certainly come up daily, today I learned a valuable life lesson from one of my students.
Deciding I would stay a little bit after school rather than duck out, one of my students came in and asked if I would join the lead teacher in helping him revise a college essay. Though it was a Friday afternoon I decided I had nothing to lose by helping this student. So I stuck around.
The male student in my lead teacher's advanced placement literature class is an aspiring nurse. He wrote how his relationship with an ex-girlfriend had taught him valuable lessons that changed the course of his life. As the essay began I thought to myself, "I'm not sure what I will get out of this or what a college might see in this essay," but I was interested nonetheless.
The story began talking of the typical high school relationships and their drama. I laughed, thinking of my high school relationship, and nodded along as he continued to read his essay. Then he spoke of an unexpected and sudden change in his girlfriend: becoming withdrawn and unable to communicate with him. Of course, as this story is told from the male perspective, my lesson had just begun.
He was confused by her quietness. He blamed himself for their little fights. And this was just the start. He went on to give an example of how he found out that his girlfriend was ill. He took her to get an ice cream on a day in which she was very quiet and even more withdrawn then usual. He explained that after she finished her ice cream she began to cry. In her frustration, the truth came out. She had stopped loving herself. Those are the exact words that he used and those are the exact words that I used when I was her age and talking to my high school boyfriend.
I was stunned while he read the next few sentences. I had the chills. Still my lesson was only in the beginning stages, but I was learning. I was learning that what had happened throughout my relationship is in fact common. His girlfriend had severe body image issues. She could not understand how or why someone would love her when she "loved absolutely nothing about herself." Again the exact words that I had used in talking to my high school boyfriend. I knew her side of the situation; I was familiar with those feelings but what I did not know was his. Although it may not be the same for my first boyfriend I know, now, that in someway I affected him. My student spoke of confusion, of frustration, of anger that he couldn't even place upon her because she was beginning to be fragile in conversation as well as affection. What he learned was to be strong for people who needed him to be strong and that, in this case, was what she needed. He learned to be compassionate and loving.
As he writes, he learned "valuable life lessons". Despite this fact, though, they did not end up together because her health issues put too much of a strain on their romantic relationship. But what he wrote was a closing statement that served as the closure that I've always needed and never got from my own relationship. He wrote, "We remain friends today because she was healthy and happy and I was good with that."
I want to apologize for any mental strain that I put on you. I did not understand how to love anyone else when I couldn't love myself. Maybe it is wishful thinking, though I like to find the silver lining in things, that I taught you something through my illness, through my outbursts and withdrawals. Although we did not end up together, and I think that that was best for both of us, I hope that I had somewhat of a positive impact on your life, as my student's first girlfriend had on his. I am happy and I am healthy now and I hope that you are good with that.
