What Teachers Learn in the Classroom
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
By Alissa Hetherington
Crayola Take Note glows neon on a clean board, but Expo leaves pesky smudges that only disappear with cleaner. The name brand Post Its aren't any better than Great Value, and Lysol wipes are a must. I choose lemon over fresh linen. Fridays consist of white-spaced lesson plans and stacks of ungraded papers. Grading on Sundays costs your faith and your sanity. Students who work at AMC bring left-over popcom if they think you're cool. Sometimes the angry dark-haired teenager with the gold chains around his neck, whose only greeting is fuck you, will be the same kid who says I'lI miss you when you seal your resignation letter. Gangs end feuds with tire irons and golf clubs on 14th Street after school, but with bruised knuckles fist-bump their favorite teacher on their way to third period. We don't talk to Miss like that. Show some respect - an honor code that begins and ends with the bell schedule. When there's a faint knock on your classroom door followed by I need to hang out here for a few minutes, you're the safe
space.
In the Top Right Drawer of My Desk, I Keep My Why
By Alissa Hetherington
I scatter the pile of senior photos, gifted to me
from former students, across my desk until
my calendar mat is coated in a rainbow
of filters and backdrops, the writing on the back
of each one in combinations of occasionally
less than legible scrawls, notes that are supposed
to remind me of my why. One is from P, wearing his
red letterman, straight-faced with a pig-skin
tucked under the right arm, taken just a few weeks
after the winning homecoming game,
before he signed a college contract, leaving a note
on the back of his photo, thanking me for making sure
he passed English 4 to keep his scholarship;
just a few weeks before D posed for his photo,
hands in his jean pockets, plain black T-shirt,
but a smile tugging on the corners of his mouth,
like the class-clown he always was, the note on the back
just a simple: Thanks for not writing me up that time
I climbed on top the cabinets; that was only months
before the same photo, with the same curly hair
and half-grin, hit the front page of the newspaper:
2024 GRAD KILLED IN DRIVE-BY SHOOTING.
I keep that in my desk drawer too, look at it occasionally -
I swear I can still hear the joke forming on his lips.
Alissa Hetherington is a high school English teacher from Pennsylvania. She is a 2020 graduate from Bloomsburg University and is currently pursuing a Creative Writing MFA from Arcadia University. When she's not in the classroom, Alissa enjoys spending time outdoors with her two dogs, Rosco and Copper. Her work has been previously featured in Beyond Words Magazine.
