The first time someone asked me to teach at their school I felt nauseated. It was for an 8th grade English teaching position in Keenesburg, Colorado. I remember liking the principal - a short, stocky and butch woman who appreciated my honesty when I responded to a question about the Colorado educators' evaluation rubric. I said, "I'm not familiar with the rubric." She advised that I familiarize myself with it (I guess it is sort of important?). She offered me the job the next day and I told her I needed to think about it. I was working as a paraprofessional at a school for students with emotional disabilities making $12.80 an hour. I was also studying to pass a simple exam to add a special education teaching endorsement to my secondary English language arts license.
I turned the Keenesburg job down the next day and told her I thought I wanted to stay at the school with the emotionally disabled students. I told her I wanted the experience because I wanted to be a special educator as my long-term goal.
This was not the actual truth. I didn't think I could be a teacher, ever - English, special education, anything. I was too fragile, too incapable, and too self-conscious. Telling her I had a long-term goal to teach special education was a cop out. I stayed working as a paraprofessional because no one was really counting on me for much, and I couldn't really count on myself for much either. This was a phase of life where to me, job offers were more anxiety producing than the thought of not having a job. The Keenesburg principal told me, "You know you will have those students with disabilities in your classroom anyway, right?" This was almost four years ago exactly, early summer of 2014. I will never forget that principal. She wanted me to work at her school. I have no idea what her other options were, because Keenesburg is not a popular place in Colorado. But there at least must have been something of a teacher in me, something passionate or knowledgable in the way I spoke when I drove out there and admitted I didn't even know the first thing about how teachers are evaluated. I am a teacher now, but I still rarely think about the Colorado educators' evaluation rubric.
I was pretty ticked at my tennis team today. I can't stop talking about it. This is what it is to be a teacher and a coach: I never stop thinking or talking about it. I felt like the mom in Lady Bird today, the scene where Lady Bird is trying on prom dresses and her mom, the psychiatric nurse, doesn't like any of them. The mom says, "I just want you to be the best version of yourself that you can be." Lady Bird asks, "What if this is the best version?" I am sure my group of slightly less than ambitious teenage girls would say, yes, they are the best versions of themselves that they can be. But I think this is also what it is to be a teacher and a coach: I know that they are not their best versions of themselves - not yet.
I was very hesitant to become a teacher, but not because of the things educators are so riled up about currently. I am not making much money, but this is not why I felt like puking the first time someone offered me a job. I was terrified of my perfectionism and how it would destroy me, my weekends, and my sanity. Because teaching is a job that everyone says you have to take home with you. For me, it has not been grading. It has not been lesson planning. As a special education teacher, I rarely even take the paperwork home. Maybe I shouldn't be admitting this? I am working extra hours as a head tennis coach, but the time at practices and matches isn't bothering as much as what I never fail to take home with me: my own perseverating, circular, relentless thoughts. They consume me and I drown Adam and my mom with rants about the turbulence of my days (sorry, Adam and Mom!).
But I'm doing it. Most days, I go home exhausted. I was this close to typing, "inspired." My barrage of thoughts spin around in my head for hours after I get home; I have to suffer through them before I realize the tiny (but numerous) inspirations make it all at least worthwhile (and at most exceptionally rewarding). I have to take into account that this year, I have been extremely spoiled with a group of the most ernest and kind 12-year-olds I've ever met. I have a student who likes to think of quotes for our class every month. Sometimes she finds them from someone else, but the best ones are the ones she creates herself. In March, she made a multi-colored display of block letters with highlighters on loose leaf paper and presented it to me jubilantly: "There is no time to whin, only time to try." I couldn't bring myself to correct her spelling on whine. I can't think of a better quote to live by, or at least to hang up on my bulletin board and glance at several times a day as I plug through another ten emails, crank out another "Present Levels of Performance" on an IEP, or re-create another set of sub plans to accommodate changes in the weather for the regional tennis tournament pulling me out of class this week.
Teaching is hard. The trouble (or the blessing?) is, I can't think of another thing that I'd rather be doing for work. This, I guess, is surprising coming from someone who rejected her first job offer and suffered a nervous breakdown upon her second, tearing down a meticulously arranged classroom the day before students were set to arrive for creative writing and American Literature. This was in Greeley at an alternative high school, a few months after I dodged Keenesburg and covered my disappointment in myself with the band-aid of a low expectations workplace. I ripped that off a couple of years ago and confirmed what I was so afraid of: the pressure placed on teachers is very high. This sent me running from my first two opportunities. There is pressure from parents and administrators, but I don't think I am alone when I say the biggest pressure comes from within. If I'm not helping the students that walk into my classroom make academic growth, then what is the point of them coming in at all? Spoiler alert: many of them are not performing well on end-of-year assessments, and I suppose this is where that educators' evaluation rubric comes up. If I ever receive the label "ineffective," I know I won't be able to stomach it.
Here's the however: I do think other jobs sound harder. I have three months off a year. I have three or four day weekends almost every month of the school year. Yes, kids are annoying and rude and high-maintenance; but they are also funny and honest and interesting. I'd rather attempt to help them become better human beings than sit at a desk all day and...what? What do other people do at their jobs? I don't really feel smart enough to do anything else. I guess I am pretty organized so could conceivably be a secretary, but I hate talking on the phone and doing favors for people. There is a simplicity in the purpose of teaching and coaching. I don't know if I will do it for many more years to come or if I'll burn out (because I hear that happens), but I do know that right now, it is exactly what I am meant to be doing.
#RedForEd #ProbationaryTeacher #WhyITeach
