Today was an interesting full circle teaching day.

My English class took a break from our normal curricular routine to learn about mood and tone and read some classic poetry.

It’s a lesson I’ve done many times, six classes a year for probably15 the last years or so. We start by watching the original Mary Poppins trailer, analyzing how filmmakers use elements like music, color, movement, lighting, and sound to create feelings in viewers.

Then we watch this hilariously creepy fan-made Mary Poppins trailer, looking for impact on mood and contrasting with the original:

We talk about how writers create powerful feelings with none of those elements—just by choosing their words carefully. Then we read the simple and relatable poem “Days” by Karle Wilson Baker together and identify words that carry connotation. Finally students move into small groups and choose from 8 poems by Poe, Blake, Carroll, Wordsworth, Tolkien, Plath, etc. to analyze the poems for tone and meaning on their own in the same way.

A year ago I was teaching this lesson to my first period class and I had a stroke.

It was not my first stroke. I’d had one at the Charlotte marathon the month before, and doctors were still working to determine why. But it was the first one I’d had at work.

Strokes can cause lots of different symptoms, and for me the primary symptom was aphasia, the inability to communicate or understand communication. It was a cruel twist for an English teacher and writer, especially last December in the middle of a lesson about the power of words. At that moment I couldn’t remember how to talk. I just stood there pointing at the poem “Days” on the board while my students sat silently and wondered why I wasn’t saying anything.

Fortunately I had a co-teacher in my class that morning, and she stepped in and took over. In a couple of minutes, the clot that had been restricting blood flow to the part of my brain that controls communication apparently dissipated, and my speech returned.

I could have sustained permanent brain damage or paralysis. I could have died in my classroom in front of my students. But instead of handling it as a life and death situation, I didn’t even tell the other teacher the truth about what was happening. Instead, I just made an excuse about feeling dizzy and tagged back into the lesson.

I had three more classes to teach that day. If I didn’t do it, who else would?

For the last twelve months I have thought about how I handled that moment many times. I constantly preach to other educators to set boundaries, practice self care, don’t take work home, etc. For the most part I follow my own advice. That day I made the wrong choice, and it was my choice and mine alone.

As I’ve reflected on this episode over the last year, I’ve come to realize that sacrificing my own health for a job is a choice. But it’s a choice that is driven by a broken education system that expects so much from educators that it encourages us to put the job in front of essential personal needs–sometimes with catastrophic results.

Today I taught that lesson on poetry and word choice with no hitches.

Several months after my health problems began, my neurologist spotted a shadow in my carotid artery and suspected it might be a rare condition called a “carotid web” which generates clots and sends them shooting up to your brain. In July I had surgery to stent the artery, and I have had zero problems since.

Today after my last class on the power of words I went to Presbyterian Radiology downtown and had an ultrasound and MRI on the artery to check how the stent is integrating into my body. The scans look great, and I am hopeful that this health chapter of my life is closed (and extremely grateful for the friends and family that supported me in various ways through this unexpected and frightening experience).

As I enter the new year, one of my goals is going to be improving at setting boundaries and not sacrificing my health and well being for a profession that—if one doesn’t watch out—will keep taking until there is nothing left to give.

Here’s to a healthy and balanced 2025!! 🍎