The Adults Who Saw Me by Laurie Faria Stolarz

        For this month, we’re talking about feeling seen during our youth--by mentors, teachers, and adults--and also how we portray those figures in our work.

        For me, the adults in my novels are typically absent. Or they're standing in the way. Or they misunderstand the young people in front of them. 

        I've spent a lot of time wondering why I write adults that way. The answer, I think, begins with the kind of student I was.

        I spent much of my childhood trying not to stand out. I wasn't the loud kid, the funny kid, or the athlete. I wasn't the student teachers held up as an example. I never felt particularly smart, talented, or exceptional. Most of the time, I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water. Flying under the radar seemed safer than risking someone discovering I wasn't as capable as everyone else.

        So I was quiet. 

        Ironically, one of the clearest memories I have of a teacher noticing me came because I wasn't behaving the way he thought I should. In middle school, I was talking with a friend during English class instead of doing the assignment. The teacher stopped the class, raised his voice, and told me, in no uncertain terms, to move my chair into the corner of the room and sit facing the wall. 

        For a kid whose greatest goal was to disappear, it felt excruciating.

        His explanation was that I never talked to him or to the rest of the class—only to my friends—so I should sit by myself.

    

        The room went silent. 

        Even then, I don't think anyone understood his logic. 

        I suppose I was finally visible. But that's obviously not the kind of seeing any child hopes for. 

        Looking back, I realize there's a difference between being noticed and being understood.

Teachers noticed whether I did my homework. They noticed whether I was talking during class. They noticed the grades I earned. But very few seemed to notice who I was.

        I wasn't the student anyone predicted would become a writer. I wasn't singled out for my essays or praised for my imagination. If anything, I assumed I was fairly ordinary. Writing was something I enjoyed, but it wasn't something anyone suggested I might actually be good at.

        And then there was my high school French teacher. To this day, I don't know exactly what she saw in me. What I do know is that she never made me feel unintelligent. She seemed to believe I had an aptitude for language before I believed it myself. Oddly enough, the first teacher who gave me confidence in language wasn't an English teacher at all. Because of her, I kept studying French through college and beyond. It wasn't just that she taught me French. She quietly expanded my idea of who I could become.

        College became another turning point. I was a business major, but more than one business professor commented on my writing and asked why I wasn't studying English instead. Then an English professor said something that has stayed with me ever since: "You owe it to yourself to pursue your writing." No one had ever said anything like that to me before. It wasn't simply a compliment. It was permission. For years, I had assumed writing was something I loved but not necessarily something I was meant to do. Hearing someone I respected tell me otherwise changed the trajectory of my life.

        When I think about those moments now, I realize they shaped not only me but my fiction. Teachers rarely occupy the center of my stories. Schools are often places where young people feel misunderstood. Adults don't always recognize what a child is carrying or what they're capable of becoming. That's the emotional truth I grew up with.

        But there's another truth in my books that I hadn't fully appreciated until recently—again and again, there's one adult: a mentor, a counselor, a teacher, a neighbor. Someone who notices what everyone else overlooks. Someone who sees potential before the young person can see it themselves. Those characters didn't appear by accident. They're echoes of the people who changed my life.

        As writers, we often think we're inventing stories. In reality, we're translating emotional experiences into fiction. We don't always recreate events exactly as they happened. We recreate how they felt.

        My stories aren't really about adults failing children. They're about how extraordinary it can be when one adult doesn't. I can still name the people who saw me. A French teacher who believed I had an ear for language. Business professors who wondered why I wasn't an English major. An English professor who told me I owed it to myself to pursue writing. None of them probably realized the weight of those conversations. They probably thought they were making an observation.

        Instead, they gave a quiet kid permission to imagine a future she hadn't believed was possible. And I suspect I've been writing thank-you letters to them ever since. Not directly. But every time a young character in one of my novels encounters the one adult who truly sees them, I know exactly where that person came from.