The Worst Thing That Could Happen To a Teacher

Sohkor Solanke

I can think of at least three traumatic things that could happen to a teacher (I’m sure there are more) that would be really hard to bounce back from: 1. Being accused of doing something of which you are innocent. Careers and even lives could be ruined if a teacher is accused of something that would remove them from their jobs, strip them of their license, or even bring legal action. Even if you are later cleared, the stigma could still follow you around for a long time. 2. The trauma of being involved in a school shooting. I’m not even sure how teachers go back to school in the days, weeks, and months following something so traumatic. But teachers are very sacrificial, so I’m guessing most of them do it so the students will have a sense of normalcy and support going forward. 3. Losing a student. This is the one I want to talk about.

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I’ve been teaching for 15 years, and during that time, there have, sadly, been a few occasions where a student or former student passed away. It was always so heartbreaking, but the one that happened last year affected me profoundly because this student actually sat in my class.

He was a senior in my homeroom. He was very quiet, unassuming, and seemed somewhat shy. I only had my homeroom for 15 minutes each day before lunch, but I knew all their names because I’m a rule follower, so I dutifully took attendance every day.

I usually spent those 15 minutes getting caught up on emails or paperwork, while listening to the seniors banter on about homecoming and prom, romantic relationships, excitement about graduation, teachers they hated, complaints about how covid had curtailed their high school experience, and plans for after graduation. I would usually chime in and comment on their banter, especially if they brought up questions about jobs, college admissions, or scholarships. A group of girls kept a countdown on my board of days to graduation. One day, I helped a few of them order their graduation gowns Anyone who’s a teacher knows that you can grow very close to a group of kids when you get to just hang out with them on a regular basis rather than having to actually teach them.

He usually listened to music through his earbuds and kept to himself during those 15 minutes. I noticed he often wore wrestling gear, so I would sometimes ask him about his involvement with the team and roast him about the outfits they wore to compete.

I keep a list of each student’s birthday on my board, and I update it every week. In December, I said happy birthday to the boy in question and asked him what he was doing for his 18th birthday. He told me he was going to pick up his brand-new Tesla, and he showed me a picture of the shiny blue car. I remember saying, “wow, can I be in your family?” (I discovered after he passed that his father was a former NFL player, but he was so quiet and unassuming that he didn’t advertise this fact). The next week, I roasted him during homeroom because I had seen him waiting at the bus stop. Why were you waiting for the bus if you have a Tesla? He laughed and explained that he was waiting for it to be delivered.

My son gave me a CoryxKenshin shirt (If you know, you know) for Christmas. I wore it to school one day during the new semester. He came in the room, looked at my shirt, and laughed. “Not the CoryxKenshin merch!” another girl chimed in. He was a fan, but he thought it was weird that someone my age was wearing it, and we talked about it.

One day not too long after that, an Assistant principal stopped me as I was heading to my car. “The principal needs to see you before you leave”. “What now?” I thought. I was agitated because I wanted to leave on time to avoid the traffic. As I waited for him, I heard a list of the teachers he needed to see come in over the AP’s walkie-talkie.

The principal caught up with me a few minutes later and told me that he couldn’t give me any details because they were still awaiting official acknowledgment, but the police had told them that a student had passed away. That’s all he could tell me. There would be a meeting in the morning with, hopefully, more information.

I remember feeling my legs turning to jelly underneath me and my stomach dropping. I was still reeling from the loss of my mother a few months prior- now the loss of someone so young?

I made my son drive on the way home because I was too upset, and I wanted to find out who it was. I didn’t tell my son the news: it may have been one of his classmates. I assumed it was one of the students I teach, so I used my phone to look up the attendance for that day for all of my 10th and 11th grade classes. Each time I saw an absence next to someone’s name, my heart dropped into my stomach. For some names, I felt relief when I saw that they were absent for my class but had signed in later that day. But that still meant that it was someone else, so my relief was short-lived.

After a while, I remembered the list of teachers’ names I had heard over the intercom. Why would a student have three English Language Arts teachers? Then I realized that the other two teachers taught senior ELA classes, which meant the student was a senior and probably just had me for homeroom. When I got home, I started to look up the schedule of each student in my homeroom. Only one student had that combination of teachers. I went through them all again because I didn’t want to be right. He was here every day, but today he had been absent. I knew it was him, and my heart sank again. When looking up his schedule, I also noticed that he had attended the same elementary, middle, and now high school as my own child- they were classmates. I still didn’t tell him. He didn’t notice that I went into his room that evening and grabbed all his old yearbooks from elementary through middle school. And there he was in all of them- the student that had passed away. That night, I cried and prayed that I was wrong, but that felt like an uneasy prayer because it meant that it was someone else’s child, so I prayed that the police had been wrong and it was just a miscommunication.

The next day, they still couldn’t confirm his passing, so we couldn’t tell his classmates. His seat was empty in homeroom, and my heart felt so heavy.

On the third day, they were able to confirm his death in a meeting with all his teachers. There were audible groans, and the air was sucked out of the room. I spent some time crying in the school psychologist’s office that morning, and she comforted me as I explained that this was too hard to process when I was still reeling from my own mother’s sudden death. I wept for his family. I wept for his lost future that was just beginning. I wept for his empty chair in homeroom.

Over the next few days, the news started to trickle out to the students, and guidance support staff came to speak to his classmates. The kids in my homeroom were in disbelief that one of their classmates had passed away. It felt surreal. One girl made a comment that she had heard that in every senior class, there is always at least one student who passes away before graduation. Hopefully, that’s just an old-wives tale.

Throughout the last few months of the school year, we inched closer to graduation, and with each senior milestone, I thought about the empty chair and the student who wouldn’t get to participate: Prom, grad bash, delivery day for graduation gowns, spirit week, senior awards night, graduation rehearsal.

Graduation day was a mix of emotions for me. I rejoiced that my youngest child was graduating from high school. My husband and I had successfully dragged three boys each through 13 years of schooling, and our twenty years of parenting pre-k-12 students had come to an end. But it was bittersweet because my student had passed and because my mother, who had been there when my elder two sons graduated, was gone, and her absence was magnified on this day. After the graduation, we stopped by the gravesite to honor her legacy and the role she had played in helping us raise our sons.

That year, graduation began with a heavy moment of silence for the students and staff who were senselessly gunned down in the Uvalve school shooting just days earlier. Then the roll of graduates was called, and his name was the first to receive honor and recognition for completing 13 years of formal schooling. I thought it was a beautiful gesture, and I cried in my seat.

I wept for his family. I wept for his lost future that was just beginning. I wept for his empty chair at graduation. I thought about how hard this day must be for his family as they thought about all the other students celebrating an achievement of 13 years with their families.

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The end of each school year is always a little sad for me. I’ve formed a little community with each class, a community in which we’ve gotten to know each other well and seen each other every weekday (give or take holidays) for the past ten months. We’ve grown together, laughed and cried, and celebrated birthdays and other milestones. Then that community is suddenly disbanded and we each go our own separate ways as they move up to the next grade level or graduate. It always makes my heart smile when they stop by the next year to say hi and to see their own classroom, even those who were a handful.

But this time, there was a student who wouldn’t be returning to say hello. I wouldn’t bump into him at the local grocery store, nor would I receive a post-graduate Facebook request from him. No updates about his future endeavors, successes, failures, marriage, or kids- just silence and memories.

They don’t prepare you for that in teacher training college.

Rest in peace, Ali J.

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Postscript: Writing this has been so hard. I have stopped and started many times, and I have tears in my eyes as a write these final lines. I thought about him and his family often as I watched my son and his friends attend countless graduation parties, enjoy their summer, and then go off to college, new jobs, or the military as Summer turned into Fall.

I didn’t return to school this fall. The convergence of many factors, including my mom’s passing and more than two years of stressful teaching during the Covid pandemic, took a mental and physical toll on my body, and I was forced to take a leave of absence. My student’s passing only added to the breakdown I experienced. It really is one of the worst things that could happen to a teacher.