Your teacher self, Hopeful

by Kasey Stecher • August 2024

Hope is the thing with feathers,
she writes,
that perches on the soul,
and sings a tune without the words and never stops at all.
I have sung the tune for 180 days.
for 17 years.
I was sometimes off key,
but I always found my way back.
Lately, my song is still there
But feels
nothing more
But a faint whisper.

Every September, I start the school year with hope.
I hold on to that hope, as long as I can.
A sense
of positivity
Of motivation.
It wanes-
Then creeps back-
at the start of each week-
at the return from each break-
at the beginning of something new and exciting.
What am I hopeful for?
for my students’ success:
that they will turn a corner from failure,
that they will find me warm,
inviting,
Comfortable and safe.
That they will go out into the world,
breathing deeply all it has to offer.

The 2019-2020 school year. New Students.
Same Hope.
Then, things started to feel-
less hopeful.
a virus.
March 12th, 2020.
A conference Day.
“consider adjusting plans for potential remote learning”
two weeks.
And we hoped.
Then closure: return date undetermined.

4 years have passed.
I have
had so much hope;
held on to hope;
lost sight of hope;
I have questioned
whether it was fair or right
to remain hopeful.
in the face of fear, paranoia,
new science, changing science.

All the while
the children needed us,
Need learning,
they couldn’t just stop
growing or finding ways
of knowing.
more than ever before,
I felt my hope,
my sense of hopefulness,
slipping away…
BUT.
I know I will
keep grasping.
It just hurts to hold on.

I am also a mother.
I am a mom
alongside all the moms of my students.
I am a teacher,
like the educators who now have
my children
as students.
I am Mrs. Stecher.
For very different reasons.

I am constantly going
back and forth.
Hoping:
Am I being
a good mom
a supportive parent?
Am I being
A strong role model and
an empathetic educator?
Each of my students
is someone else’s.
pride and joy.

I write myself hopeful.
I write myself hopeful
when I reach out:
to my own childrens’ teachers.
To my own students’ parents.
how-can-I-help?
how-can-I-support-you?
A plea dressed up in hope.

Dear students:
Do you know
You are
swiftly and
without warning
Becoming adults?
Please! grasp that same hope,
run with it.

At the end of each day,
I’m hopeful, again.
Cautiously
(recklessly?)
hopeful.
For change.
For the good of it all.
Every school year,
Sing the tune,
Even if it starts only as a whisper.

What drives you?
What do you want out of this year?

Go ahead, try to define that one thing…
The answers.
These questions.

Kasey Stecher is in her 16th year of teaching English and works in the Pawling Central School District in Dutchess County, teaching high school seniors in AP, Dual Enrollment and electives. Kasey is a teacher consultant for the Hudson Valley Writers Project and a graduate student at SUNY Stonybrook in Post-Master’s advanced graduate certificate program studying educational leadership. Kasey is an advocate for writing in all classrooms, and believes strongly in the restorative and powerful impact writing can have on young adults. She is an avid reader, a proud hockey mom, and a novice but enthusiastic gardener.

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