On this episode of Teaching Matters, Heidi Marks Morris shares her thoughts on the slogan "No Regrets" as it applies to teachers and all human beings. This week we are able to share a full transcript of Marks' Thanksgiving Missive about regret.
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“No Regrets” is a saying that has always roused my ire in its preposterous posturing as sage life counsel. The only way to live without regret, I would argue, is to (1) never make a mistake or (2) never admit to one. Anyone who would attempt either of those routes is an idiot. Simple as that. Those of us who have made mistakes (and, I would hope, chosen to learn from them) should find regret both healthy and inescapable. I would even assert that regret is essential to humility: a humble person is one who admits error, who listens openly, and who is willing both to apologize and to forgive.
Ironic, then, that absence of regret is the fountain of my Thanksgiving missive this year.
Five years ago, I retired: after 20 years in C6, I walked out of it.
Ten days ago, I held class in C8 for the first time—about 30 feet from literally coming full circle.
Coming back to Hidden Valley this year (for only one year! I’m retired!) was a move I neither foresaw nor sought. The experience fell into my path, much like my first sojourn here did. I chose to take an opportunity to reinvent the very essence of teacher training by spending a year working in harness with a rookie teacher.
I had a very clear vision of how this would unfold. I even created a color-coded spreadsheet with a period-by-period schedule of that vision. We signed on the dotted line. And then, of course (as is inexorably the case), my halcyon vision was obliterated by merciless reality and unprecedented parameters, including no students in the classroom and an unremitting deluge of technical training that brought me to tears more than once. But at least one facet of this adventure is as I had anticipated: I am reliving the journey of a first-year teacher, up close, personal, and in excruciating focus. Elizabeth Venzon, my chitlin/colleague/minion/teacher-in-training, is at least five years older than I was my first year, and she seems, in so many respects, like a baby. I boggle to consider how young, inept, naive, and unprepared *I* was when I began teaching.
I have already had three “first day”s of school this year (yes; The Dress has featured in all of them), and each has put me in mind of that First Day in September of 1995. I don’t know that I could articulate then or now exactly what I saw when I gazed out at the first sea of faces, but I am certain that whatever my mental map may have been, it had no inkling of “five years from now.” That is, I did not gaze out at those faces and imagine their lives beyond that moment. I did not see them in college, the military, or the workforce; much less did I gaze twenty-odd years down the road and see THEIR CHILDREN in a seat in my classroom. My brain did not pulse with, “Now don’t do anything you’ll regret!” I simply looked to survive. I learned as I went.
Some of the most unpleasant but necessary lessons I learned were of the damage I can do, unwittingly or carelessly or (God forbid) intentionally, in my role as a teacher. The words I speak, the feedback I give, even the expressions on my face are all weather in the mental sky of my pupils. While the meteorology of that weather is far from an exact science, neither is it inscrutable.
Equally surprising, but far more pleasant, were lessons of the good that could result. Words spoken in admonition or encouragement often spurred growth. Words written in support, affection, and gratitude were even more powerful. Perhaps more than most, I received feedback about the effects of my counsel—counsel to take Comp or calculus, counsel to modify one’s writing style, counsel to seize opportunities. I focused on creating opportunities to share time in conversation, over meals, in rafts, making memories and human connections.
I made—and continue to make—myriad errors in my walk as a teacher and as a human. The more I am able to savor the fruit of opportunity noticed and nurtured, the more deeply I mourn opportunity lost or squandered. As I see the “five (or ten or twenty) years later”s, I often wish I could rewind the clock to inject a modicum of foresight into my past actions. Such a familiar dirge of regret is the song of “If Only. . . .” Perhaps the concomitant grief of that nostalgia is what birthed the “No Regrets” slogan.
The chorus of that “If Only. . . .” hymn, however—a refrain I sing daily—is “But thank God that. . . .” Thank God that I had the opportunity to work with a marvelous panoply of humans and the sense to try to do good in the process. Thank God that mistakes, missteps, and misunderstandings can be forgiven, built upon, and ultimately redound to our mutual benefit. Thank God that my misconception of life as a one-way street and my oblivion to future ramifications of today’s decisions did not preclude my actions from laying groundwork for lasting positive relationships with colleagues, with students, with community members.
Thank God that unexpectedly coming back brings me hope, comfort, satisfaction; thank God that facing my past as I am this year does not inundate me with embarrassment, shame, chagrin . . . regret.
We may “pass this way but once”; on the other hand, “there is only one world,” and our paths cross and recross all our lives. Everything we do sends ripples out into the universe, across, around, and through our fellow humans. Every action we perform has consequences both intended and unforeseeable. Regret is an essential component of our journey, but gratitude is even more vital—and ever so much more enjoyable.
