When Students Light the Way

The best gift I didn’t know I needed was a touch lamp. The kind that turn off and on when you barely touch the base of it. This particular touch lamp was black on the bottom with a round base and slender pole leading up to the lightbulb. The bulb was covered by a tan colored metal lampshade that looked like a little triangle hat – like the hats people wear in rice fields to shade themselves from the sun. The entire lamp was no taller than a foot high. Sort of like a mini-lamp.

They probably sell lamps like that all over the place, but I had never noticed them. I had never even given any thought to a small lamp that could sit on a table and I could touch it instead of actually turning a knob to turn it on. I mean, how hard is it to turn a knob versus just touching it?

Turns out, I loved that lamp. 

I loved how it sat on a small table I had. I loved touching it and I loved how smooth it felt on my finger. When people would come over, I would point out the lamp and say, “Isn’t this great?” and regardless of their response I admired that little lamp. What I loved the most about that little lamp was how it got to me.

One year, I was teaching a particularly prickly bunch of middle school kids. The program was designed for students who were academically at-risk in some way. Some were labeled this way because of skill, some because of will, and some because of both. 

One of the hardest things about working with at-risk kids is getting them to see the gifts they have inside themselves. The scripts they rehearse in their heads are already half-written when they get to you:

You are dumb.

You are worthless.

You are nothing.

You are never good enough.

Our jobs were not only to teach curriculum, but also empower students to be the best they could be. In the Year of the Mini Lamp, I was tired. 

So tired of all the stuff. 

All.

The.

Stuff. 

And I sort of felt like their script was becoming MY script. I knew this was a slippery slope but it happens to the best of us. If you really care, and I mean REALLY care, there are days when you feel defeated because your kids feel defeated. And you carry it around like a hole inside your belly.

So that’s where I was when one student walked in with a gift bag. The tissue was so wrinkled it looked like it had been in a ball and he unraveled it and flattened it. He brought the bag over to my desk and mumbled, “Here. It’s for you.” 

Now this particular student had been known to break out into profanity that would make sailors blush. Not because he didn’t like you, not because it was even directed at you, but just because that’s how he talked. Our agreement was that he would try really hard not to say those words within my ear shot and I would try really hard not to hear them as long as he got his work done. You have to pick your battles carefully with adolescents.

So, when he gave me the gift bag, I wanted to make sure I understood him correctly and repeated, “For me?”

He nodded and stood there. He wanted to watch me open it. For a second I thought it was a joke but quickly realized he was serious, so I awkwardly pulled out the crinkly wadded up tissue and slid the tiny little touch lamp out.

When I looked up, he said, “I saw it and wanted you to have it.” Then he turned and went to his seat.

That’s it. I still have no idea why he thought of me or any other details around the purchase of that lamp. I just know that he didn’t have to do it, but he did. And that was the day that I decided forever that we don’t just teach curriculum. We teach humans.

By giving me that little lamp, he let me know I was enough. That lamp became a treasure and a symbol for the unspoken connections that happen each and every day in our classrooms. I don’t know if you have a touch lamp, or a red mug, or a pencil holder. But whatever you have, remember the path it took to get to you, and know that in the moment it was selected for you, that you were enough.