Why I Stay

9.27.09 By Neema Avashia

Friday night, I came home to my apartment only to find the back window broken open, and my computer and jewelry stolen. It’s the second time I’ve experienced a break-in since moving to Boston, and this one happened just two years after the last incident.

I admit to being something of a wallower, and spent much of Friday night and Saturday morning feeling sorry for myself. But Saturday morning, I got a text from one of my former students, Troy. It read, “ms A can you say three touchdowns by ya boy…... oh yea you def gotta get the paper 2morro”. “My boy”, in this case, is also the most challenging student I have ever taught. In the fall of 2004, in my sixth grade English class, Troy was so smart, and so anti-authority, and I was such the struggling, inept first year teacher, that we butted heads every day, only reaching an uneasy peace after he spent a ten-day stint at the Barron Center and I made sure that he did not fail his courses by keeping him up-to-date on his work. It’s been five years since I taught Troy in my class, and removing the authoritative element of the teacher-student relationship has done miracles for our interactions with each other. We keep in touch regularly. He considers me his number one fan, I think, and always invites me to games, shows me his report cards, and shares his accomplishments and struggles with me. He seems to have forgotten how hard our year together was, and describes me to his friends as his best and favorite teacher. And Saturday morning, a five minute conversation via text with Troy was enough, in that moment, to make me forget about my laptop and my jewelry, and remember, instead, how precious the people in this city have become to me.

Texts from Troy are part of what keeps me going in this city, and in this work. So do phone calls from Josie, another one of my former students, asking for advice on what courses to take to be best prepared for college. And emails from Fabiola where she sends me photographs of her newest artwork, and asks me for my feedback. Visits from students I taught one, two, three, four and five years ago continually serve to remind me of how extensive my community in this city has become, and how far my reach truly goes as a teacher in the Boston Public Schools.

Six years into my BPS teaching career, I’ve developed a repertoire of skills and knowledge that make it such that I could change careers in an instant in this city. I could work a non-profit, or go get my PhD, or climb the Court Street ladder. Instead, I choose to stay where I am, bolstered by the relationships that I’ve built with young people here, inspired by their intellect, grace, and love, continually motivated to be the very best teacher I can be for them, so that they in turn can be the best versions of themselves as they make their way in the world.