INTRODUCTION
Do you remember what it felt like to look up at your parents when you were four years old? They seemed impossibly tall, like human skyscrapers, like sentient oak trees or space shuttles on the launch pad with booming voices. They seemed so impossibly tall that they seemed beyond human, beyond the capabilities of your own body’s potential. And yet mom and dad, and certainly grandma and grandpa, would always pinch your four year-old cheeks and say, ‘my, how tall you’re growing! Soon you’ll be taller than your dad.”
That seemed beyond impossible, and yet, years later, it actually happened. At least in my case it did (Okay, maybe only by an inch or two, and maybe my bushy hair has something to do with it, but I’ve got mom by at least a foot!). Living up to the expectations everyone had set for your four year-old self became more and more attainable as time passed. But after each accomplished goal and each milestone reached, another one would crop up and taunt you from what seemed like an impossible distance ahead.
When I became a teacher, I thought I would walk into that job and instantaneously become everyone’s darlings. My students would love me and the parents would adore me. The administration would see the work I was doing and give me a raise to serve as the envy of all staff present and future. In short, I would be the teacher of all teachers, a god amongst educators.
Prepare yourself for a shock: it didn’t work out that way. As it turned out, I was a decent enough teacher, maybe even good. But I was no hero and I was not impervious to the angry parent, the unfocused and uninterested student, or the nervousness or overwhelming nature of being a first year teacher. It all happened and I quickly realized I was not the uber-teacher I suspected I would be. That realization wasn’t, in itself, too damaging to my ego or my day-to-day life, but I found myself profoundly disappointed in how I was dealing with the knowledge that I was not the heavens-above gift to education.
I had set the bar so high for myself that I couldn’t possibly attain those heights, couldn’t possibly engage every student, appease every parent, achieve every career milestone I had hoped. And that, beyond all other struggles throughout the course of that year, proved to be most exhausting and difficult to cope with.
The funny thing about teaching, however, is its ability to swing in an entirely different direction quickly and without warning. My fifth hour composition class had been a struggle for me all year long—these were my ninth and tenth graders who needed quite a bit of help with their writing, and on top of that, their energy levels soared through the roof every day without fail. I would find myself tired and worn out after that class, and there were days, to be honest, I dreaded going there simply because the thought of it made me tired.
As it turned out, however, this turned out to be the class that changed my perspective on teaching in general.
There was one student in that class that barely did any work the first semester of school. He squeaked by with a C- and seemed to be in class simply because that was what had been expected of him. This did not surprise me especially, and so I moved on with the sentiment that he would simply always be one of those students who just didn’t care about writing.
But that changed second semester. The next thing I knew, he was writing. Not just writing, but writing well. He was engaged in class and seemed genuinely interested in what we were reading. What had changed? What had I done differently to make him interested? Had I done anything different? This instance forced me to examine the class as a whole. When I took a step back and looked at each student’s writing, I realized something startling: they had all improved. They had all become more engaged.
I credit that in part to their own drive and determination, but what I also found myself forced to realize was that I had a part in that. I had, in fact, lived up to the expectations I had set out for myself. What had caused my disappointment about not being a superhero teacher was the fact that I had constantly redefined my goals as the school year progressed. I had tricked myself into not realizing I had achieved my goals.
For this month’s issue, photographer Rudi Silbermann and poet Isaac Melum teamed up to get a grasp on exactly that sentiment: what to do when we must live up to expectations we may or may not be able to realistically achieve, and maybe even how to cope with the realization that we have, in fact, achieved our goals. Whether in the form of a career choice, an interpersonal or romantic relationship, or any other goal set out before us that taunts and pokes and prods until it’s almost maddening, Silbermann and Melum set out to provide a discourse on something we all need at these times: an effective coping method.
With an ear for the simplest of sentiments defined in terms of genuine empathy, Melum has composed poetry both sincere and occasionally whimsical to produce an overarching feeling of welcome and understanding for the reader. Coupled with Silbermann’s handle on the ethereally surreal and his eye for meaningful and symbolic content, Issue Four’s tag-team of artists has created a narrative both welcoming in its scope and sympathetic in its discourse.
Please, turn the page and enjoy Rudi Silbermann and Isaac Melum in Issue Four of Waterlogged August Magazine, The Higher Bar.
