Teachers change lives.

Today, a former student of mine sits alone behind bars and a handful of charges that won’t go away. It isn’t capitalization or The Odyssey that whirs through his mind this afternoon. He doesn’t fill out a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting himself with Romeo (same: they have both now killed a man in a moment of desperation—different: he did it for meth, not for friendship). Perhaps, you’ll say, somewhere in the fuzzy back of his brain, he catches glimpses now and then of the themes we tried to untangle together in the depths of tenth grade—the centrality of love, what to do when you’re depressed, why faithfulness matters, why you matter no matter what. But my money isn’t on it. The lessons are gone, flushed down the drain of his life before. Every hour I spent haggling him to keep reading with us, we’re on page 197—you still need three more sentences—what are your long-term goals? can you write about that?—pay attention—no horseplay in class—your grade is falling; you need to catch up—is an investment soured and spent.

You could step in and encourage me here: “You never know, Sarah. He might remember those things still. You made an impact! Something you said will come back to him ten, fifteen years from now!”

I’d rather stay in the realm of the plausible, though. Fast forward fifteen years, and something could give, but it won’t be an article he remembers reading in English I. He’ll meet a man he looks up to who says the sentence he needed to hear, or he’ll jump on his luck and land funny and finally be ready to admit what he needs. I hope that it happens, but I’ll tell you this: in all probability, it won’t have a darn thing to do with me.

Somewhere along the line, teaching stopped being enough for teachers. I guess we don’t value reading, writing, and arithmetic as valuable goods in and of themselves anymore, because instead we repeat like a mantra that we’re not just educators, we’re life changers. Mother and father, sun and moon, we teach and raise and entertain. We are students’ conscience, their source of love, and we aim to form not only their heads but also their souls, their moral compass and their dreams and perspective. They are falling, falling down into darkness, but we find them and catch them and save them entirely, and ever after they are firm and secure. “I owe it all to my tenth grade English teacher,” they say even as adults. “She gave of herself and changed my life. She is the reason why I am where I am today.”

This happens, halfway, sometimes. It’s true. Teachers talk to the same set of teenagers every day, and as a result we both know more of what’s happening in that kid’s world than most do and we’re also able to speak in a great deal of influence and love. Sometimes, our little efforts stick, and we see a kid about-face from a path of destruction towards stability and peace. There’s nothing like it; transformation like that is a miracle every time. It’s a job perk and a payoff that keeps us chugging along through the other 364 grimy days of attitude and tardy bells and late work to grade.

In far more cases, each of us contributes one drop of wisdom and kindness each into the complex universe of a singular soul. We make up the village that it takes to raise one kid well: teachers and more teachers, coaches and friends, first boss, nuclear family, grandma, Uncle Jerry and Mom’s best friend. At the end of the day, past remembering who said which truth or what sacrifices were made, an adult steps into the sunlight and stands strong, and that’s all.

And then there’s a kid in a jumpsuit who can read and write a little better than he did at 15, although the fact hardly seems relevant to any of what came next.

And somewhere along the line, the storyline changed from “sometimes teachers make a bigger difference than the lesson plan” to “we have to change the life of every kid we teach or else we’re nothing.” This is now who we are and what we do. It’s part of the job description. And when we don’t see it bear out in reality, we consider ducking into fantasy to imagine that no, no, surely we changed that one too; surely we’re still the hero in this hoarse tragedy. Because if not, then it’s meaningless; the work was all in vain. We have failed to rescue every one. We are not the God who saves.

Teachers do as much good as we can, but we are limited mortals with only so much to give. These grand, sweeping statements only set us up for a chronic cycle of guilt and pride—I didn’t do enough for this one—I’m letting them all down; I can’t snap half of them out of their depression—I did it; I am the sole reason this child has recovered. I am the source of her life. I am a giver and a lover and a saint. We are anything but the in between, the merely competent and ordinary. If we have not achieved Superman’s stature, that is our fault, our flaw. Tomorrow, we will try again harder.

Yet this is our fate, though we try to outrun it: we are ordinary people, though we long to think ourselves gods among men. But hope still flashes now and then like lightning for the boy who has to learn to live with blood on his hands, because it’s not up to teachers to save the planet. It’s not the social workers who will bail us out, or the church professionals, or the counselors, or the politicians with their endless programs and money.

Above it all, above it all, there is a God who saves.