For the Teachers

Dearest teachers, 

As the months of COVID carry on and I continue understanding privileges I have taken far too much for granted, I think today of the teachers I’ve had throughout my life.

I think about the teachers who gave me abundant grace while I was coming out in high school, when I struggled with depression in high school. 

I think about the teachers who demanded excellence, who taught me how to ask a question, who taught me to speak up for myself and for others. 

I think about the teachers who taught me long division on hot afternoons. 

I think about the teachers who didn’t have the title of teacher, but who were certainly teachers in their own right. 

I think about the teachers who taught me that doing wrong didn’t mean I was wrong. 

I think about the teachers who taught me what music was, and how to make it. 

I think about the teachers who let me play pretend and then said maybe, one day, pretending could be the thing that filled my life up. 

I think about the teachers who didn’t know what to say at the time, so they just sat with me, and that was good enough. 

I think about teachers who showed me pieces of art that would entirely alter the way I saw the world. 

I think about teachers who introduced me to ways of thinking I’d not heard of before.

I think about teachers who handled emergencies with grace. 

I think about teachers who let me daydream and stay inside during recess. 

I think about teachers who would empower me to write, so that eventually, many days, months, years later, these words would appear before you. 

I think about the fact that I am who I am because of my teachers. 

And I think about the hell that has been the last six months have been for teachers. I think of how the coming months may be hardly a rest from what has been. 

I’ve been taking some acting classes online and last week my acting teacher mentioned that since the beginning of COVID, attitudes in online classes have shifted. While few would argue that a Zoom acting class is comparable to an in-person offering, the students and teachers have adapted. Acting students and teachers alike have grown more open to connection as the reality of disconnection presses in. Moments of truth have been found, shared, learned from, regardless of the sometimes thousands of miles that separate the players. In all art forms, limitations have been the soil of becoming fuller, more dynamic crafters. That has been no different in these times of life-threatening disease and necessary civil unrest. 

Teachers, you are artists. You have brought a more dynamic, creative world to each and every student you have been able to teach despite distance, away from their nuanced body language, through WiFi instability and power outages. Your Zoom classes are a new art form and your communications through barriers are new melodies making their way despite every complication that blocks open ears. 

I don’t know each of your hearts, or each of your situations for the upcoming school year. Maybe you’re teaching online classes for now or in person classes for now. Maybe the situation you’re currently in will change in a few weeks or months, or maybe you’ll be able to find a groove and pattern to life that can stay consistent for the whole school year. I hope that whatever your experience and however you need to process it, you have the space to do it. Every artist needs the space to fully and authentically face the adversity before them, and learn how they will move forward because of it. You inspire me deeply. 

There are moments we all hold onto from our educational process. Undeniably, so many of those moments for decades to come will be from these very days. Remember that you are a magician without the ability to know how far your spell will travel, or how deeply your spell will hit. Remember that you are a truth teller and the truth that comes from you will permeate through all the growing your students have yet to go through. Remember that you are human, and you are partnering in raising tiny humans. They adore you, even when they don’t have the stamina, the belief or the courage to show it. 

I often continue conversations with teachers, even now, thanking them, debating them, questioning them. Most of these conversations are in my mind, though every once in awhile, some continue in real time. I recently had a brief exchange with a teacher who was there for me in my middle school years. I was in awe at the ways we were still so connected despite all the distance time had brought. May we never buy the lie that distance inherently means disconnection, whether it is six feet, or fifty years. You are more deeply connected than you know. 

To the teachers of my childhood, thank you. To my friends who are teachers, thank you. To my teachers who became my friends, thank you. 

May you know, you are magic. You are an artist, and an artist never knows how far their work’s impact will travel. I see divinity in you, and I honor you. 

With sincerity and a warm (closer than you think) heart,

Andrew Gilliland