When I was thirteen years old, my family took a road trip. We flew to Seattle, rented a car, and drove Rte 1 to San Francisco. This was a change for us; we usually spent summer vacation visiting a family camp in Vermont. 1980 was different; every 50 miles or so, my dad would pull over and say, “Get out of the car. It’s a vista.” It was: the Pacific Ocean, some sheep gamboling on a hill, a redwood tree, or some other gorgeous sight. We took them all in; we still talk about them decades later.
Most of our family vacations, we were get-up-at-4-AM, pack-sandwiches-so-we-don’t-have-to-stop-for-lunch, one-rest-stop-and-you-better-not-sleep-through-it drivers. Most summers, the destination was the goal, and we tolerated the journey, but we didn’t stop to enjoy the views along the way. On that West Coast drive, the journey was the main event.
Recently, I drove home from Vermont to Massachusetts after visiting my sister. The next day, I realized I had no memory of the drive. I could not say what the mountains looked like or how high the White River was. I do not recall which rest stop I used or whether the sky was cloudy or clear. I drove like my family usually drove, trying to get to the destination, but not paying attention to the journey because it was so familiar. I entered some sort of fugue state. The trip had not made an impact on me. I had not taken in any of its vistas. I had not paid attention to the journey.
My first years of teaching felt like all-vistas, all-the-time. Everything was new. The landscape was unfamiliar and surprising, and I felt I could get lost any minute. I remember most moments from those years: the Macbeth production that Oscar and Julia organized, when Victor played a guard dressed in a flowery bed sheet; when I tried to lead my freshmen in a choral reading from Romeo and Juliet and it went horribly wrong; when angry Priscilla explained why the book Ellen Foster meant so much to her. The students’ faces, names, and moments are as clear to me as the redwood, the sheep, and the sunsets of the trip down the West Coast.
But the last few years of teaching don’t stay with me the same way. I reach the end of the school year, and I don’t recall its details the same way I once did. Students’ names from a few years ago are harder to hold onto, though I remember their senior papers and conversations we had about their future plans. Teaching is no longer a new landscape for me, and I am more confident in what I am doing. I know the rhythm of the trip, where the climbs and speed traps are, where to stop for lunch. Because the fear and newness are gone, the trip is no longer as engaging. This is not unique to teachers or teaching- a colleague told me something similar about parenting, explaining how the first few years overflow with memorable moments, but the teen years drift by. New parents coo about the way the baby sat up, walked, or smiled. Parents of teens seldom gush about the way their child does her HW, works at a summer job, or borrows the car. They still love their child, but the vistas don’t seem as memorable. When we are comfortable, or even skilled, we may not need to pay as much mind as when we are trying something new and terrifying.
I don’t think I’m a bad driver or teacher. I don’t think my friend is a bad parent. I think I am doing well, thank you very much, when I drive home and when I teach high school students. But I’d like to drive differently this year; I’d like to notice the journey a little more. I’m thinking about ways to do that with my teaching. I can pull over a few more times to stop and look closely at the students and what they are doing. I can sacrifice some speed for some appreciation. I can change the route a little, teach some different things in different ways, to bring back a little of that newness and fear that comes with trying something for the first time (though not too much – who wants to be a new teacher again?). Like the drive home from Vermont to MA, the school year is rich with beauty, green and lush. This year, I want to remember to pull over and see the vistas.
