Can’t Go Back Now

by Billy

I just got invited to a former student’s wedding. He asked for my new address in a text message, and we had a brief chat, and the exchange warmed me deeply. He’s all grownsed up, as Vince Vaughan might say, and my part in his life mattered enough that he wants me there to celebrate that with him. What could be a better job benefit than that?

Most of us crave feedback like it were air. Our toil and trouble in this life can frequently feel like they happen underwater. We want to know our time has been well spent, and we need to know we matter.

Unfortunately, for many professionals — and certainly for teachers — the most meaningful feedback is often ethereal, fleeting, or delayed. (Or all three.) Sometimes it’s months or years or even decades before we have an inkling of what we have accomplished.

When I think about the many, many great teachers I’ve known, I often think of “Saving Private Ryan’s” older self, seeking affirmation from the soldiers who died so he could live, needing approval for the modest and decent garden of life he has grown. His family has no doubts about his value, but Ryan does, and he carries that burdensome uncertainty, as both personal albatross and moral engine, to the edge of his grave.

Teachers only ever know a fraction of the good work they’ve done — (and, to be fair, are often less than aware of all their screw-ups, too). Whether we’re genuinely doing a Good Job, or being a genuinely Good Person, involves experience, hope and educated guesswork (and maybe a little ego doesn’t hurt either). If teachers are really lucky, maybe a former student reaches out years later to thank them, invite them to a wedding, mention them in some award speech or dedicate a book to them.

I’ll always have a soft spot for songs that can make me happy and sad. If a song can get me a little bit misty without leaving me beaten down, that’s a sonic sweet spot.

When I was working on my M.Ed., our cohort had a daily morning ritual where one of us would share a quote relevant to our learning experience. On my day, I shared “Can’t Go Back Now” by The Weepies, a simple, bittersweet song. The words, sung from the adult narrator to the younger person, are full of caution:

You know there will be days
When you’re so tired
That you can’t take another step
The night will have no stars
And you’ll think you’ve gone as far
As you will ever get

Few things are as painful as watching the child you care for suffer in ways simultaneously agonizing and essential to growing up, crossing your fingers that they’ll get through the obstacle course of cruelty and confusion, hormones and humans, with just enough scars to build something like wisdom.

You can’t become an adult without learning to play through the pain, to find that second wind when the energy is spent. And you simply can’t learn how to do that if some adult is always there to pull you back on the path at every misstep. Sooner or later, the training wheels gotta come off, and you gotta take your damn hand off the back of the seat. Especially if you want them to go faster than you can run, which is kinda the whole point of a bike in the first place.

The ideal product of the best adults is a prepared, stable, resilient young person who can fend for herself, who thinks for herself, who cares for others beyond herself because she recognizes her part in a larger play. A new adult whose potential outshines our own is the success story. A new adult who is so inspired by your impact on them that they seek to be that kind of adult to someone else is the greatest compliment.

Success is to render ourselves, in so many important ways, unnecessary.

YEAR: 2008