SOAPBOX: Teacher guilt is real, but she still searches for classroom magical moments

On KJZZ's SOAPBOX, The Show turns over the the mic to listeners. Do you ever wonder what your kid's teacher is thinking? This week we're hearing from Arizona educators for the latest collection in our SOAPBOX series, where listeners tell their own true stories. This time the theme is The Classroom, and next up is high school teacher Anita Walters, who is constantly on the hunt for magic moments.  

Walters has spent 20 years teaching high school English, creative writing, journalism and college composition.  

Those magic moments

My stepdaughter — who has two school-age children and has taught herself — asked me, how do some teachers inspire students so much, for years even? After 20 years of teaching high school English, the best I could tell her was, it’s a crapshoot.

Teachers reportedly make more decisions per minute than brain surgeons. The job demands we entertain, engage and inspire, all while evaluating each one of the students, most of whom are likely battling out of control hormones, stress, meds (legal or otherwise) or screen-time overload.

Since our students are hardly cookie-cutter, we know that authenticity is the only thing that works. Kids smell fake praise like a dog detects a pinch of sugar in a swimming pool. My own insecure teenaged self suspected almost all compliments of ulterior motives. But when my favorite teacher pulled me aside and said I should pursue a career in writing, I listened. Because she guarded her compliments closely. I’ll never forget her. So, I tell my own promising scribes, especially the self-doubting ones, that they have talent, whenever I can.

Enthusiastic students are easy, but what about the ones who struggle? And if their class is overcrowded or they’re chronically absent, the opportunities to really connect are rare. Then there are days that just. Don’t. Work. Where the most significant connection is getting a kid to unwillingly admit that ChatGPT wrote their essay. These are the days that keep me up at night, thinking of what I should’ve said. Teacher-guilt is real, folks, and it’s pervasive.

But then, a kid who’s been giving me double doses of side-eye hangs out after class, wanting to keep talking about "1984" or show me their writing. What??? I’ve even gotten a few visits from former students who I was sure drew mustaches and devil horns on my yearbook picture. What on earth did I say to make them want to come back to share their lives with me? 

I keep looking for magic moments. Like the one with the young man who, when he did come to class, slunk into the background and refused to talk. One day, I peeked over his shoulder while he was writing maybe his only essay that year. Amid a scattershot of words was a sentence so simply profound it made my heart stop. Without thinking I blurted, “That, right there — brilliant!  Expand on that!” Turns out this kid was going through a personal upheaval that could crush adults twice his age. It just happened that in my room he wanted to let it out on paper. He hugged me hard at graduation; and I still picture his beautiful smile. I wonder, does he still remember? 

I’ve come to terms with the idea that I may never know if or how I changed my students. I can tell you without a doubt that my students have changed me.