What's My Age Again?

A few months ago, a coworker admonished me for allowing students to follow me on Instagram. Taking me aside, she told me that she honestly didn't know what I was thinking and said something akin to, Kelly, these kids are not your audience, and they are not your friends. She then repeated that she didn't know what I was thinking and acted gravely enough about the "situation" that I panicked, removed any student followers from my Instagram account, and made it private. Then I sat around feeling bad about myself for doing something that my coworker deemed so reprehensible, questioned my judgment, and felt almost dirty. Why did I make such stupid choices and do things that other people thought to be so abhorrent? What was wrong with me?

Well, like I said, that was months ago, and since that conversation, I've had a lot of time to think. The first thing I have to say is that I think my coworker dramatized the situation. I truly don't think I did anything horrible, and I think I had absolutely no reason to feel ashamed. The second thing I have to say is that she was wrong: right or wrong, my students are my friends.

"Friend" is a pretty common word, and we all know what it means. For the very occasion of this blog, though, I looked it up in a few dictionaries, and this is what I found:

From the Free Online Dictionary--

1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.

2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.

 

From Google--

 

A person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.

 

From Dictionary.com--

 

1. a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

 

While I understand that these definitions are denotative and not connotative and one could argue that these definitions don't define the word the way my coworker used it, I have to say that even if I were to apply the connotative definition, my students would still be that. Not all of them, of course, but some of them definitely.

 

I DO like and trust some of my students;

some of them and I  DO have (at least from my point of view) a bond of platonic mutual affection; and I AM attached to some of them, too.

Why  is that so wrong?

 

Isn't it natural for me to care about people who I spend almost as much time with as I spend with my family? Isn't caring what I'm supposed to do?

 

Whether you think I'm supposed to or not, all I have to say is that if I didn't care, I couldn't do my job, at least not well. If I didn't like my kids and have some kind of reciprocal relationship with at least some of them, I would have had to quit teaching years ago because, as bad as this may sound, the fulfillment I get out of my job--and, yes, as brutal and thankless a job as teaching may be, I do get fulfillment out of it--is tied to the relationships I have with my kids. I know I don't reach all of them, but I also know that I do reach some. 

They also reach me.

There are times that I go to work in the worst mood possible, hating the world, and after an hour or two spent with my kids, my bad mood not only dissipates, but I'm actually in a good one. There are also times when I go to work sad and they make me happy. There are times when I'm not at work and I see something that I know one of my students would love or be interested in, and that student instantly comes to my mind and I make a mental note to discuss said thing with that kid. Just like the kids that actually came from me, my student-kids are always on my mind.

No matter how much my coworker looks down on it, some of my students are friends. 

 

Are they the types of friends I would hang out with and share the things I share with my adult friends? Of course not, but they're friends nevertheless.

 

And I'm not ashamed to admit it.