The most wonderful part of my first year of teaching began in mid-February, when I coached the co-ed tennis team. That is when my job came together. I became a teacher much more fully; my vocation and daily work became my identity on a much deeper level. I started to have an undeniable attachment to Jackson, and each day took on a pleasant, stable flow of work and rest. Coaching for two hours in the afternoons gave me the daily structure and sunshine that I needed. More than anything, though, it created a space for me to interact with students in a more friendly, personal way than the school day and the classroom allow.
Three of my players were my own students: one an academic star, one an enthusiastic girlie-girl, one an enigmatic, fair-weather, hot-tempered teacher’s pet. The other nine were upperclassmen, each with their own pizzazz. The one who played upon my gullibility regularly was also a young woman whose sensibility and responsibility impressed me. The one who told other players, “Don’t talk to my coach like that! Don’t talk that trash!” brought a contagion of cheerfulness to every practice. The persistent whiner of the team was also the one who showed the most commitment of any player. The loud-mouthed girl who wouldn’t part with her mp3 player and frustrated me with low-cut shirts also was clear-headed about prioritizing school. The placid introvert with a misdemeanor was also the one who always helped lug balls and water without my asking. Each player had an endearing idiosyncrasy and a puzzling dynamism that made me love him or her all the more.
How did coaching translate into my being a teacher, and success in the classroom? It gave me a different kind of confidence with students. I brought the knowledge that I can relate to students in a way that conveys I care, and it showed me how receptive they can be and want to be to a teacher who cares. It also showed me that I am capable of being autonomous. I was able to coordinate game details with other coaches on my own (also teachers themselves), and to manage bringing my team to two all-day tournaments.
Through coaching, I began to see that my youth and inexperience were no real hindrance to cultivating that part of a teacher’s role that cares for her students like perhaps a parent does. By that I mean, getting to know particular students and their good and bad sides on their good and bad days provided an opportunity for me to discover how care for a person can indeed be a constant. Whereas teaching was often an up-and-down experience – there were great highs and also great lows – coaching showed me that teaching can be a sustainable profession through all that turbulence because care for students is (can be) a constant. This is not an ideal; it is possible.
In fact, coaching tennis also showed me that my youngness was not necessarily a disadvantage. Despite common comments from community members – such as from a woman who I waited with while my oil was changed: “You’re a teacher? You’re too young!” – my player S.K. reveled in the fact that I was young. She’s also a student of mine.
At the district tournament, S.K. and I leaned against the fence to watch the mixed doubles match. As we rooted for them, my obnoxious, over-excited tendencies started showing in my facial expressions and body language. S.K. delighted in this and responded with the same kind of expressions – excitement for the match we were winning. “When are you going to invite me to your house?” she cajoled, half-jokingly. After that day, her demeanor in my class became increasingly conscientious and her desire to improve at tennis showed in practice. In both domains, her efforts doubled. She went from being a mediocre student with bare-bones effort to being student of the month in April. She earned it for her outstanding insight in class one day, that the way Japanese-Americans were residentially isolated and given sub-par housing allocations by the government was not too different from what happens today. I didn’t even pose that as a leading question…she saw the real-world connection to literature on her own.
As I reflect upon this success, a desire to become more involved in my students’ lives when that door is opened floods back to me like rushing waters. To see a student respond to teaching in such a way that multiplies her efforts and brings her closer to the full expression of her personality and ability: what an unsurpassable, indescribable, unexpected wonder!
EPILOGUE
On another level, coaching tennis was a success because it got me involved in my school’s community. Adults who play at the public court where my students practiced and played have become some of my closest friends in Jackson. I love the fact that most of them are black; I feel like I am able to become more fully a part of this neighborhood that way. Blacks and whites need more regular interaction built into their daily lives; tennis has been a very natural way to regularize our interaction. For instance, through tennis, I befriended Tracy, a local teacher, whose niece’s baby shower I attended at her church one afternoon after we played tennis together. There, I met her whole family! To be welcomed into her life has been so exciting to me. Amidst tennis, Tracy and I share music and discuss Christianity; her friendship is one of the sweetest things to emerge yet from my time in Jackson. “Make your deposit here, then move on,” she advises me when I tell her I may want to stay in Jackson past these two years.
In combination with a book I am currently reading, Divided By Faith by Michael Emerson, and my experience teaching and coaching and participating in this tennis court and my church, I have become increasingly committed to living in a racially diverse area and not sticking to my own background in where I will live, where I will send my children to school, where I will worship, and where I will work. MTC has me seriously considering my future life choices.
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