One reason I love teaching is that it forces me to keep studying and learning. I would gladly go back to graduate school again, if I just didn’t have to write the papers. And honestly, I might still do that too! However, I honestly never expected that one of my most stretching, most rewarding teaching experiences would come not from a classroom full of teenagers, but from a single student in her eighties. She passed away not long ago, and I find myself thinking about her often. This post is, in part, a tribute to her and to what she taught me about learning.
History Belongs to Everyone
She was a naturalized citizen of the United States. She did not grow up in American schools, and she had spent decades carrying a quiet list of things she always wanted to understand better. She was concerned that her own exploration was turning up incomplete stories about American history and government. She wanted to know more about how the U.S. works, and how it got to be the way that it is.
Agreeing to meet with her was one of the better decisions I’ve made. We met most weeks, talking for an hour about topics that loosely fell within American history and government. Sometimes our conversations were chronological. More often, we followed the threads wherever they naturally led, from the founding era to the civil rights movement to something in last week’s news. She came to every conversation with questions. She apologized for having so many, though I told her there was absolutely nothing to apologize for.
What she reminded me and what I think gets lost sometimes in the rush to cover curriculum and meet requirements is that the desire to understand history is not something that expires. It doesn’t belong only to students in a particular grade, or people who grew up in a particular country, or anyone who fits a particular profile. The questions she brought to our Saturday morning conversations were the same fundamental questions I ask my high school students to wrestle with: Who has the power? How did we get here? What does it mean to be a citizen? Why does any of this matter? She just had the added perspective of having lived through several of the answers.
The Teacher Was Also the Student
This experience challenged me in ways I didn’t anticipate. She asked me to explore topics I’d never had reason to dive into deeply like the role of women in the abolitionist movement, for instance. She kept me on my toes about current events. She asked questions I didn’t always have immediate answers to, which was exactly as it should be.
And she gave back generously. She had stories about arriving in the United States in the 1960s, about living in both the Deep South and the northern tier states during some of the most turbulent decades in modern American history. She was not just a student of history. She was a witness to it. Being trusted with those stories was a privilege I didn’t take lightly then, and that I carry with me still. She thanked me at the end of every conversation. I thanked her too, and I meant it just as much.
What She Taught Me About Learning
I hope that if I make it to my eighties, I am still asking questions the way she did. Still curious. Still willing to say I always wanted to know more about that. Still finding a teacher to sit with and think alongside.
This is exactly what I am trying to give my high school students. Not a set of facts to memorize or a timeline to reproduce. A habit of mind. A willingness to keep asking. An understanding that history is not something that happened to other people. It is something that is still happening, and that belongs to all of us. She already knew that. She just needed someone to explore it with. I was so incredibly lucky to be that person.
For years, parents of the students I teach, or friends I’ve made, have asked me to please teach a current events class for adults. I’m finally in a position to make that happen. In honor of my wonderful 80 year old student, I’m ironing out the details for a weekly class exploring the context of current events only for adults who want to keep learning. Stay tuned for details!
