My Last Year Teaching — Starky Photography

When I was a middle school teacher, I would take photos of my students in class, at assemblies, trips, etc., and print them out and put them on a bulletin board in the classroom. The camera has always been a way for me to engage with those around me, and it became a fun tradition for students to flock to the bulletin board whenever I put up a set of new photos. By the end of my last year of teaching, when I was ready to make the leap into full time photography, I realized that I had a project on my hands. Without noticing, I had been documenting the school year and my relationship with my students. I got parent consent forms to use their images in a book I planned to finish and publish it that summer of 2017.

Of course, I have not published the book yet--but with good reason! My business took off quicker than I expected and I had to prioritize efforts to keep it growing. But the project lingered in my mind and heart, and I think that the distance from it has helped me gain a new perspective on my time as an educator and hopefully that will breathe new light into this project.

Through the photos you see these 8th graders from the beginning of the year, through our seasonal activities, trips, and all the way to the few, lounging last days before leaving for high school. I think we all remember our 8th grade year pretty well. It’s like an end of youth in a way. All the adults keep asking you if you’re ready for the big change high school will be, the increased responsibility, your teachers scare you about how now you will truly be held accountable, blah blah blah. It’s the perfect blend of noise and uncertainty.

From the beginning of that school year, I had a feeling it would be my last as a teacher, too. A former colleague and good friend of mine, Ashley, told me a story at the end of that year, when I had come to her classroom to tell her I wouldn’t be pursuing teaching anymore. She told me how the year before, 2016, I had done the same thing: I’d walked into her classroom telling her that I wanted to leave teaching for photography. She remembered encouraging me to at least give it one more year before I left, knowing I was driven enough for it, but needed more time. At the end of 2017, she said, she knew that I had found my calling and needed to respond.

And so documenting a time like this was such a joy because more than ever I got to focus on my students as people, and it’s what I hope you will see through these photos: young people separate from whatever stigma you apply to an 8th grader. Through whatever chaos is present, we live life one day at a time--and, though moods and attitudes are especially volatile at this age, we are our true selves in the present, which is what this series is: a string of separate present moments of people who could be nothing but themselves.

It was one of my goals for the year to finish and publish this book. If anything, I hope to at least finish it while we figure out what happens to the world after all this uncertainty. I’ll be in prayer throughout this time and hoping something good springs forth from this nightmare.