I learned everything I need to know about teaching from one child. For the sake of
privacy, we\u2019ll call him Landen.
I got a new bus driver when I was in the fifth grade. I\u2019d had the same bus driver since
Kindergarten, and being ten or so years old in a pretty routine-centered family, my days rarely
had any element of change. So after this bus change, it was a little odd seeing a new face
every morning, let alone a baby in the front seat.
I don\u2019t remember how old Landen was when I met him. Maybe two? In retrospect he
was probably older, but he looked like a small toddler. And I don\u2019t know to this day what
made me sit beside him rather than with my siblings or my friends. It wasn\u2019t that I didn\u2019t care
for babies at the time, I just didn\u2019t care much about them. Having grown up with dozens of
little cousins, they just weren\u2019t all that interesting to me. But something must have put me
there on the first day of school, because the next thing I knew the best part of my day was
spending time with my bus driver\u2019s baby.
He was so funny, and so smart. He didn\u2019t say much for a kid his age, but he brought
an incredible happiness into every little thing he said and did. In all those bus rides to the
school and back home, I don\u2019t think I ever saw him cry. To this day, having met and loved all
my new cousins, students, and even a niece and nephew, I\u2019ve still never seen a kid smile so
much.
I would show him videos of my betta fish on my iPod nano, and eventually he would
use the word \u201cfishy\u201d. At the time, I was a kid too, so other than that I mostly remember him
laughing, and I remember his smile. No matter how we tried to get him to say my name, it
must have sounded too much like his favorite television character, because for five years or
so I was \u201cElmo.\u201d
I think Landen\u2019s mom was my bus driver for about two years? Either way when my
bus route changed again I wasn\u2019t too disheartened, because by that time my mom was his
Kindergarten teacher. I was used to helping out in her classroom in my free time, and now
there was extra motivation because Landen was there.
I remember he was a menace in Kindergarten. I think he was in her class for two or
three years, but it took her all that time just to get him to stop swearing in front of the other
five year olds. Aside from a bit of potty mouth, he was such a joy. Even when he was cursing,
everyone around him struggled not to smile and laugh whenever he made his presence
known.
I don\u2019t remember when I found out he was sick. I was in late junior high or early high
school, I think. Had I been older, I probably would have caught on sooner. He was always
smaller and younger-looking than other kids his age, and as he got older he walked a little
differently. He had a progressive brain condition, and somewhere in there I found out he had
a life expectancy of about ten years old.
It felt impossible. It felt wrong to grieve, because he wasn\u2019t my brother or my child.
But it didn\u2019t take me long to realize that my entire school was grieving for this boy.
Unbeknownst to him, and somewhere in between my childhood and my adolescence, he had
become the heartbeat of our little school. Everyone was his best friend. He greeted everyone
he saw with such excitement across the hallway as though he was seeing them for the first
time in years, every single time. He told everyone he knew that he loved them, and he only
saw what was good in them. It didn\u2019t matter if it was a new teacher, one of his cousins, a
group of junior high girls, or a troubled highschool boy who just came to school drunk for the
second time that week. Everyone was worthy of Landen\u2019s love. And as a result, when Landen
was in the room, only the good in everyone showed. He had a way of uniting people that I
have never seen before in my life.
Last time I came home from university he was in a wheelchair, but it was as if he
didn\u2019t notice. He called me by my little sister\u2019s name again, but I could tell from his face that
he recognized me as me. He reached out for a high five and then a fist bump, and then started
telling me a story in a raspy, excited voice. He told me about the time that he came over to
our house, and we let him and his sister throw the rotten chicken eggs at the fence, and we
brought them in and put on a movie and he had a sleepover and it was so much fun. All that
really did happen, about ten years ago. Technically they didn\u2019t stay the night, but he fell
asleep in the middle of the movie before his mom picked him up, and we\u2019ve ended up just
letting him believe that he was there all night. I\u2019m not sure why that little fib feels right, but it
does.
So much fun. If only he knew the rarity of the fun he carried with him everywhere,
that fun that everyone got to enjoy. That was his favorite thing, fun. And in his presence, it
was impossible not to have it. I\u2019ve been lucky enough to spend time with him occasionally
when I\u2019m home and visiting the school, and I cherish it each and every time. Knowing that he
is dying is a horrible, gut-wrenching reality, but it\u2019s a reality made minuscule by the joy and
the laughter. The way that sadness suffocates joy, Landen\u2019s soul suffocates pain. The Teacher
Assistants would joke that it seemed ridiculous to be paid to hang out with Landen all day. As
a child, I didn\u2019t fully understand what they meant. But as an adult, having come to realize
how rare, how beautiful that kind of joy is, I too would probably pay most of my savings to
spend a day with Landen again.
My mom usually tears up when we talk about him. She taught him for three years of
Kindergarten, two years of grade five, and now sees him every day as the school\u2019s Vice
Principal and director of the junior high special needs program. I feel worse for her, for his
parents and his sister and the whole school than I do for Landen. He is happy every day.
Truly, wholly, delighted to be at school and seeing the people he loves and who loves him.
It\u2019s so unfair that we only get so much of Landen. He deserves more life, but we are the only
ones who know that. His life is full of undying love and inextinguishable joy, we are the only
ones who know how short it will be.
That joy is the number one thing I want to bring into my classroom. Only seeing the
very best in each child, each parent, each coworker, superior, and classroom assistant. After
one hour with Landen, I find myself a better person for at least a week. I will never be able to
fully bring that happiness into my room, but I will try every single day. When I smile or joke
or provide unconditional love to my students regardless of their situation, I will be bringing a
little bit of Landen to them, long after he is physically gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"