O Captain! My Captain!

Teaching in an inner-city high school was my first job out of college, and I was bursting with unbridled enthusiasm as I planned lessons on British literature that would set my students' world on fire. I wanted to be like Robin Williams' movie character in Dead Poets Society where life lessons are found between the pages of a book, nestled in a poem, or acted from a play. Except it did not quite happen that way, and my O Captain! My Captain! moment was more along the lines of students asking, "Why do we even have to read this crap?" 

But after that year of being baptized in a monsoon of reality, a year in which I learned more than I taught, I recognized the fundamental truth about the vocations of teacher and student. Namely, they are one and the same.  

During a lifetime one may take on any number of roles, but when it is all said and done there are but two roles of which we all play a part: that of student and teacher. At any given moment we are either a Student of Life or a Teacher of Life. One moment a student, the next a teacher. Or a teacher today, and a student tomorrow. From minute to minute, day to day. Year to year.

It is an awareness of these roles which give depth and meaning to our lives. Sometimes we bravely say I know and then with generosity step forward to say let me teach you; sometimes we vulnerably acknowledge I do not know and with humbleness say teach me. 

This is what makes the world function. We learn, then teach. We learn something new and then go out and teach that one thing. And we must be both. To be solely a teacher means you never learn anything new; to be forever a student means that knowledge is simply collected. 

Last week I came across a photo of our son, Jonathan, flipping through a deck of Pokémon cards and teaching his baby brother, Timothy, the names of all the Pokémon characters: This is Pikachu who evolves into Raichu. This guy is Snorlax and he has a big belly. As Jonathan introduced his brother to the fantastical world of Pokémon, Timothy smiled and wiggled and was thoroughly entertained. 

Then, later that evening (and almost 17 years from the photo mentioned above), we watched our son Timothy as he showed a novice altar server what to do during Mass. Once Upon a Time, Timothy's older brothers had walked him through this role, so now it was his turn to do the same.

And so it goes.  

We are born to be students. We are born to be teachers. It is not a choice, but vocations to which we are all called. 

Upon thinking back to my first year of teaching, I remembered a box of battered paperback copies of Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible. The box had been stuffed into the corner of the teacher's lounge and destined for the trash can. But I had a feeling that those ragged, tattered paperbacks would reach my students. Every day I lugged that box to the classroom so we could read the play aloud, and I watched my students come alive. There is no other way to describe the transformation. No longer did they loiter in the hallway until the bell rang for class to begin; instead, they rushed in excited to see what happens next. For the first time, they interacted with each other, offered comments, asked questions, and stayed after class to talk with me. Together, we were students teaching one another in the classroom of life.  

So maybe, perhaps, I had my O Captain! My Captain! moment after all.