Becoming the Root

1.30.11 By Neema Avashia

The other day, someone I work with asked me, “Why are you still at the McCormack?” It’s not the first time I’ve been asked that question. Stay in the same school for 8 years, and I guess it’s a natural question, particularly in the context of the “going=growing” paradigm that I discussed in my last blog post. The implication is that I can’t possibly be maximizing my teaching potential if I’m still in the same place 8 years in, right? There have to be other teaching environments, other colleagues, other challenges that could push me harder than I’m being pushed right now.
It’s entirely possible that the question has validity. That my ‘career growth’, as defined by others, is limited in the context of the McCormack. But I’ve been thinking a lot about two words in relation to each other of late—“growth” and “community”—and trying to re-forge the connection, both because I think it’s gotten a little lost in our present context, and because sometimes I doubt myself in the face of that question.

Here’s the most important thing you should know about me: I grew up on a little street called Pamela Circle in a little town called Cross Lanes in one of the littlest states in our country—West Virginia. I had the same neighbors for 18 years. Neighbors who taught me how to shoot hoops, taught me how to drive, stocked their refrigerators with groceries I liked, loved me unconditionally in a way that I’ve rarely experienced since leaving that space. The Starchers, the Carneys, the Withrows, Mr. Turner, Mr. Williams—these people taught me everything I know about the power of community, and the way in which the people who surround you can shape your identity in profound, longlasting ways. I didn’t learn about ideas of beloved community and Ubuntu until much later in my life, but I know now that Pamela Circle was the closest I’ve ever come to living the idea that “people are people through other people.”

I left West Virginia in 1997, and spent 6 years bouncing from Pittsburgh to Madison to Boston looking everywhere for that same sense of community that I’d had on Pamela Circle. I felt uprooted, and disconnected, and I couldn’t figure out how to recreate the feeling of connectedness and shared responsibility for one another that I’d had with my neighbors. And then, as I finished my BTR year and looked at the 3-year commitment that lay ahead, I realized that community wasn’t just going to magically happen for me. It wasn’t magical in West Virginia. It took work. And the same was going to be true here. I couldn’t look outside myself for the people to root me in Boston. I needed to become the root myself.  To make community where I was, instead of constantly going in search of it.

The McCormack is my Pamela Circle. It’s the place where I get to be the kind of member of a community that my neighbors taught me to be. Where Katherine, who I taught back in 2004, can call me and ask me to check in on her little brother Anthony, now in 6th grade, and I can work to support his success. Where I can send home good books for Josie (also in Katherine’s 6th grade class), with her little sister Jasmine. Where Anna (2008) can text me to make sure that her little brother Kenny’s high school application has gone through, and I can text her back with any missing pieces. Where Luis, Jeison, and Jaylene’s mom comes in for open house and hugs me and brags to her friends, “This is my favorite teacher in all of Boston Public Schools.”  Where Jordan, Heather and Angeles’, 3-year old little brother will probably be in my class some 10 years from now, and I’m already excited about that possibility.

Growth looks different for different people, I suppose. Some people grow upwards, some people grow outwards. Me? I grow downwards, pushing my roots deeper and deeper into the soul of this city, and the hearts of its youth. It’s the best way I know to do justice to my past, to their present, and to our futures together.