Heather Carnaghan
I am an AACPS: Teacher, Monarch Global Academy | 2018 AACPS Teacher of the Year
I teach an eighth-grade class called CSI at Monarch Global. It’s not what you think. There are no chalk body outlines. Instead, Collaborative Student Inquiry is a project based learning course in which students use 21st century skills and technology to authentically connect concepts across the curriculum. Connecting the curriculum builds depth in understanding and those connections matter.
I have a particularly tight connection with my current eighth graders. We have developed curriculum together, cheered for wins and patted backs after losses in martial arts, soccer, and robotics. I have written hundreds of post-its celebrating growth and kindness. I have worked with them since seventh grade and we have discussed and wondered and innovated together for two years. This year, my school community impacted my life in a way that I never imagined was possible.
At the start of this school year, I was nine months pregnant with my third child, my first little girl. My students went out of their way to pick up anything I dropped to save me from bending and laughed when they could see Charlotte kicking through my shirt. They took on new responsibilities in anticipation of my maternity leave to help make the transition to a substitute teacher a smoother one. I teased that they would all be getting babysitting calls soon because I wanted my daughter to learn their wicked researching skills (and remind them to do their homework on time!).
…Those connections matter.
On October 21, just two weeks shy of her due date, my daughter Charlotte was stillborn. Losing a child is like plowing into a brick wall that you didn’t see coming. You are thrown backwards, dazed and unsure if “forward” is even possible again. For loss-parents that moment is an abrupt ending to everything we know and hope.
Miraculously, with a steady trickle of kindness from my school community, my loss became a new beginning. My school team brought us groceries and dinners when leaving the house felt difficult. They helped me plan and host a memorial for my baby. Foxes became a symbol of Charlotte, so coworkers texted me whenever they came across one.
Students and parents sent me beautiful heartfelt letters. Together, those scraps of paper forged a lifeline for me that made it possible to face a school brimming with living children after losing one of my own. When I returned, physically exhausted by grief, an eighth grader told me, “We are a team, Ms. C. You’ve picked us up before. Now it’s our turn to pick you up.” A student who scowled sleepily every day for two years in response to my overly exuberant “good morning” looked away awkwardly and said, “You’ve greeted me at this door every day for two years. That made me happy every day for two years. Let us cheer you up for two minutes.”
Those connections matter.
As teachers, we have the unique responsibility of being the first domino in this epic domino rally setup. We can angle a child’s trajectory and then push them toward it like no other profession can. We can’t always see the end result—the dream reached or deferred, but as teachers we can look out on the world and know that one of us taught that doctor who healed you or that cashier who gave you a penny when you were short.
I once taught an aspiring writer named Jack. Jack was one of those students who “just gets” everything you teach him. I told him that his writing was worthwhile and gave him the space to write and share his work. Five years later, he invited me to be a part of his Eagle Scout ceremony. When I walked into the ceremony, I realized what an intimate setting this was. I was in a room with thirty people that Jack had chosen because they made him feel loved and honored. I was one of Jack’s thirty.
How do we make ourselves one of the thirty for all of our students? How do we become the teachers that inspire great connection in the world through great connection in our classrooms? Let’s start with a heartfelt “hello” and taking the time to seek out our students’ dreams. Let’s give them the space to try, and fail, and try again. Let’s reflect and innovate with them, instead of for them. Let’s let every action and word that we choose remind them that they are loved and honored because those are connections that matter.
