September 12, 2014 - 14:16
In life, we find ourselves lost in the wonders of those around us. Every encounter is an opportunity to learn and grow. Whether an impression be made that cause you to want to mimic or completely oppose ones ideals, it is a beautiful occurrence to truly meet another individual that makes an impression on you and, occasionally, on your life. One of the most impactful contact zones I have ever walked into was conversations I had with my junior and senior year Spanish teacher. This remarkable woman taught and teaches me but not simply as a teacher. Like all those people most valuable in one’s life, she taught me about being a proper human being. She taught me about compassion and care and looking past incidental moments of faults.
It was almost two years ago that I sat in her class for the first time. I had heard things of her and how strict she could be. I heard horror stories about her grading and ruthless detention policy. I had heard a lot of things that are now not at all how I would describe her. Though the idea of being in this teacher’s class weren’t enough to get me down, my family had recently made the decision to take in my dementia ridden grandmother. Needless to say, life at home had its own stresses. Not sure how exactly I would handle the year, I realized that there were many authorities to appease in my life now. Worrying about my own sanity was secondary to doing what I could to make it easier at home and get all my work done at school. Being only a child, I was in no way ready for what would come.
From sleep walking, loud talking, almost falling and forgetting all of who we were, my grandmother was far from a healthy state. I saw the stress it put on my parents and couldn’t bare to let them see its affect on me. It was hard enough to hold it together at home but doing so at school was a whole other story. I had begun to neglect work and turn in things late, not that they were much worth turning in anyway. I began to challenge the actors in my life that were attempting to tell me to act a certain way and do certain things that I simply did not have the patience for. I believe it is to see a child in distress, there are many signs and none of them unclear. I was falling apart at the seams and felt like everyone around was simply pulling. Not until one fateful day did I find something to pull me back above the water to breathe again.
One day, sitting in Spanish, I decided to do nothing. That morning was one of the more difficult ones with getting my grandmother ready and getting her hearing aids in. I had nothing more to give and it was easily apparent. My teacher, calling upon her authority was not having it. I would sit and pout and she asked more and more of me. By the end of the class, I left in tears and proceeded to my next class. She could have sat in her position of power and looked down on me in judgment, she could have stayed true to the stories I had come to believe as truth and given me a detention and made me someone else’s problem. She could have done all of these things, but she didn’t. She stepped down from her throne of control and reached out to me. She found me in my next class and called me back into her room. We talked and I cried and she listened with kindness.
Never before had I had such an intimate conversation with a teacher. My teacher, an older White women, connected with me, a young Black and Hispanic girl. She did not allow for her obvious position of power and authority to trump her natural human emotion of empathy and compassion. Much like Pratt speaks of Poma’s ideals of equality between contacts in her essay, I experienced a clear example of its truth. Only because she made the point to look at me and talk to me as a person in turmoil instead of a difficult student, did I have the opportunity to appreciate the amazing kindness shown by her. In the same way that I experienced her generosity of care, I have learned to do so for others in the same way. The contact zone between my teacher and I was one that only grew to be stronger and grow in depth. Not to say that her authority had diminished in my mind by it did not seem coercive as before. It simply seemed as a way by which she was supporting my growth.
I believe that there are so many people in the world and they all mean something to someone. Whether it be a man you have never talked to but smile upon passing or someone that has always been around, I believe that the most amazing thing about the human race is our ability to find others. My teacher found me when I was lost and I hope to help others find themselves too. Identity is such a strong idea, finding definition seems like the ultimate goal. Through our contact zones, we discover the parts of ourselves that seemed hidden. Through our contact zones, we are able to receive different perspectives of ourselves and I believe become the better for it. Not to say that all contact zones are of a positive consequence but I do believe that many are. I know that the meeting of the hearts I had with my teacher was.