On Teaching
This September marks the start of my fourth year teaching.
When I was a kid, I was always interested in teaching; my grandparents had an unfinished basement that, for some reason, had a little chalkboard and table. My siblings and I would play school down there, and I loved to play the role of teacher — despite being considerably younger than them.1 I loved school, too. I loved most every subject (especially grammar — I'm one of the few children who absolutely rejoiced when asked to take out my grammar workbook) and was, at the risk of conceit, good at academics. I also read voraciously in elementary school.
When I was in the seventh grade, I became somewhat disillusioned with English class. It entertains my students when I tell them that I absolutely hated seventh grade English, and I attribute this largely to my teacher. I don't think she was incompetent, but she was uninspired in her approach. The texts we read were dreadful (The Cay and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, I am convinced, will turn any child against the field of English literature wholesale), which I know may have been beyond her control, and it was one of the first times in my schooling that I struggled to grasp concepts, namely sentence types and who/whom.2
Eighth grade rolled around, and I had a teacher I felt I connected with in some way; I saw her as a role model and, more importantly, she encouraged me to use my voice, to share my ideas. I've always been opinionated (a "smartass," in the words of one of my elementary school teachers), and those opinions always manifested around our class texts, but I never felt that I was in an open, collaborative environment that encouraged me to share those opinions. I started slow; she was a new teacher, and she would try to lead class discussions and be met with blank stares (a symptom of middle school more so than her teaching, I think). I was bored of the silence and chose, at last, to tell her that I thought The Old Man and the Sea was boring tripe and that Hemingway's emphasis on simple, straightforward prose followed from the hyper-masculine assumption that literature should not be beautiful and artful, which is stupid.3 She smiled and challenged me on some of this, but the message was received: it was okay — encouraged, even — to not like the books teachers presented me with, and I should voice my opinions! She also was the first teacher to take us deeper into a text as we dove into the Christian allegory of the story, so that even if I didn't personally enjoy reading the book, I could at least respect some elements of it.4 I had held onto my interest in teaching — though, being thirteen, I had a lot more teenage concerns on my mind than what I wanted to do when I "grew up" — but it gained focus that year. I thought, maybe this is what I want to do.
High school proceeded and I had some ups and downs in my freshman and sophomore English courses.5 I also started taking technology courses now that I was actually offered electives. I was, and still am, a bona fide computer nerd; most of my teenage years were spent online6, and I just loved tinkering. I had the privilege of going to a bougie high school that offered tech classes sponsored by Cisco, which went through basic computer maintenance to fundamentals of computer networks (I learned to subnet, by hand) all the way to programming corporate routers. My teacher of those courses encouraged me, told me I had a natural ability with the technology (maybe true, but again, computer nerd — this was the sort of thing I was already doing in my free time, to an extent) and that I could have a lucrative career in it straight out of high school. He also made clear that my gender would benefit me; companies would hire me to meet diversity goals. I could reasonably expect to make in the high five-figures at an entry level if I used some of the connections he offered me.7
As the end of high school started to loom, I was conflicted: I was passionate about both paths and could see myself in either. I had another English teacher my junior year who again connected me to the subject and stood to me as a window into what my future could be — but I also knew the teaching market was, at the time, awful for English teachers. And even if I could find a job, I could only dream of making the salary that technology offered. But I couldn't shake the memory of how it felt to be in eighth grade, and then eleventh grade, and have a teacher who lit me up: who showed me how complex and debatable and transformative literature could be, who listened patiently as I railed against authors and texts they no doubt loved, who challenged me to find reasoning and evidence and integrate theory with my (sometimes borderline edgelord) critiques, who said to me, perhaps not in these words but in their practice, "You have a voice and that voice matters."
At last during senior year, I felt I had to commit. I went to my English teacher from the previous year and asked her how she chose teaching. I won't share the details of her story — it's her story to tell — but she described being in a very similar situation as me: torn between what seemed practical and what she was passionate about. She chose the passion.
I did, too.
I'm reflecting on all of this because I have been on summer break for the last month and a half now, and while it has been much needed relaxation and recuperation (and moving), at my department curriculum planning day today, I felt like myself again. A coworker brought up our staff mega millions pool, and I confess that I bought in often because I'd feel like a fool if a bunch of my coworkers won millions and I was still out here teaching. She said she would keep teaching; another coworker agreed; and I did too. We worked all day, and even when I got home, I wanted to start creating and revising curriculum, setting up my learning management system, getting ready for the start of the year.8
I love teaching. I feel lucky to have coworkers who love it like I do. I'm going to try to remember all of this on the days when I don't feel surrounded by coworkers who share my passions, on the days when the career is hard to love. It's worth it.
(I still would like to be paid more, please.)
Perhaps this was more control freak tendencies than love for teaching, but then, I'm not sure teaching and being a control freak are ontologically separate.↩
I'm a big proponent of teaching grammar in context and regularly. That was not the approach that this teacher took; she spent a handful of isolated days making us do worksheets on comma splices and making us distinguish between who and whom without helping us understand why things worked as they do — and then tested us on it at the end of the week and expected it to just be seared within our memories months later despite not mentioning it ever again.↩
Perhaps not in these words exactly, but I was getting there.↩
I have not read The Old Man and the Sea, or really any Hemingway, since then, so I do not necessarily think these opinions hold up. But then, it really is a boring book.↩
There are two stories I like to tell about how spite inspired me to become a teacher, and one occurred in my 10th grade English class. Another story for another post, I think; it didn't feel like it "fit" here.↩
Also another story for another time, but one I'm not sure I'm ready or willing to tell.↩
I don't resent his pointing this out, for two reasons: one, it was true, and probably still is; two, he never presented it in a way that made me uncomfortable. He was matter-of-fact about it — it was an advantage I had that I should behoove myself of, but he also was willing to discuss the challenges I would face, too, as a woman in a male-dominated field.↩
Instead I chose to write this, which is probably the healthier option.↩