The Birth of LifeClass
The names of students mentioned here have been changed to preserve their anonymity and protect their privacy.
I wish I could remember the exact day.
I do recall that it was during fifth period - my favorite period, which I am not supposed to admit because I’m not supposed to have favorites, but I’m human.
Connection is a difficult concept to explain. There’s not a clear definition of the “how’s” and the “why’s” we sometimes connect with someone. There are a million little things, teeny-tiny forces that we feel energetically when we connect to a person.
My fifth-period class serendipitously was my connection, not just to the beautiful souls who called me Ms. Levy, but to the inner child within me.
Allow me to go back a bit, so I can fast forward.
At the age of six, I sat on my father’s lap and told him that I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up.
“No surprise,” he said. “Whether you are teaching your cousins, friends, or your dolls, you are always running a classroom.”
After graduating college and working odd jobs, I found myself in my own classroom. I used to close my eyes and think about the teachers I had. “Maybe I’ll be like Ms. Clark. She was a hippie…a carefree spirit,” I pondered. “Or, I can be like Mr. Jones. He was modern and cool.”
Just be someone you needed, my heart whispered.
And that whisper became my mantra.
Now let’s move forward to fifth period.
It's the second semester. During the first semester, my students had me for a Writing Seminar class. Before we would all split up and go our separate ways, they had a meeting with the guidance counselor and asked if they could stay with me for another semester.
“Let’s stay together,” we all agreed. I needed to come up with another class so I could keep them. They could have opted for a less rigorous course, perhaps even a study hall, but they chose me.
I envisioned a Creative Writing class and carefully planned out the curriculum.
“We are the chosen ones, y’all. Remember we all chose to stay together, so you have to do the work. There will be assignments.”
“Yeah, yeah,” they smiled. “We know.”
It was a mixed class of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. I assigned them writing prompts and pushed them to open up in ways they never thought possible. Writing was always a therapeutic tool for me growing up and I wanted to foster my love of writing in them.
They did the work, but the moments in which I truly got a glimpse into their souls were when we spoke about life. Our memories of our childhood, challenges, family hardships, insecurities, and so much more.
We talked daily.
We built a family based on trust.
A judgment-free zone, we called it.
We felt heard when we gave our inner children a voice. What we got in return from each other was acceptance. A ghost of a nod, conveying “I’ve got you.”
We all want to be “gotten”.
I noticed that the second I cleared my throat or sipped from my water bottle, they sat straight up, put their materials away, and listened to me share some of my life stories. This empowered them to share their own stories.
Their stories of anxiety.
Stories of fathers in prison.
Stories of drug addiction.
Stories of an uncle molesting them when they were little.
Stories of how mom used to be the perfect mom and now she “can’t take it anymore.”
Stories of the stepmother whooping them with the belt buckle for breaking a vase.
Stories of not having shoes for school because mom locked herself in her bedroom and the shoes were under her bed.
Stories of how they didn’t want to wake up mom because she stayed up all night shooting up.
Stories of having to be a mom to mom because mom is a mess and bringing men into the house.
Stories of not having enough food at home.
Stories of abuse.
Stories of trauma.
Stories of lost love.
Stories of love lost.
Stories.
We are all made of stories.
We talked about the stories.
We wrote the stories down.
We dabbed at the light gray stains our tears left behind on our paper.
We ripped up the paper on which our stories were written.
We cried after throwing out the paper shreds.
We felt powerful.
We held hands, we hugged and we healed. Well, a little bit anyway.
“Let’s call it Life Class,” Bo said.
“How about LifeClass?” Kay wrote on the dry erase board with a thick dark marker.
LifeClass started way before fifth period, but now we had a name for it.
A name was born and the two words were linked together - LifeClass - to remind us that we are all connected and will be, always, no matter where we are.
Gone are the days when I would line up my dolls for pretend school. I had a real live classroom and real responsibilities with the power of being a teacher. Throughout my life, I realized that every person, whether a child, a parent, a friend or a colleague who walked through my door, always had a safe space to tell their story. To unload their burdens.
Just be someone you needed.
That is my purpose. To be someone I needed for someone else.
To help them suffer a little less.
To help them heal.
To show them that they can also be someone they needed.
To help them understand that they can use everything they’ve been through, despite what they’ve been through, because they can truly understand the meaning of compassion.
Love and Light☮️💟
Tova