Every year that I have been in education has presented some level of problem or issue that I never anticipated. You would think that after 22 years, I would not be able to say that. Yet here I am, in my 23rd year, facing the most bizzare start to a school year that I have ever seen. Our classes don't begin for a little over another three weeks, and I am already having my before-school nightmares.
I remember my fifth year of teaching as a milestone in my experience. By completing a fifth year and heading into a sixth, I had passed the 4 year barrier that about half of new teachers do not overcome. My teacher friends who had also passed that mark talked about it almost as though we had crossed a point of no return.
It was my sixteenth year that I finally embraced the reality that I truly was a teacher. I know that might sound weird, but like Mr. Holland (in the movie Mr. Holland's Opus), I kind of thought of teaching as the job that I was doing until my writing would take off. Granted, I should probably have spent more time writing then, but to paraphrase Mr. Holland: "My writing?! When do I have the time for my writing?!" Yet something struck me that sixteenth year that made everything fall into place.
Oddly, I have carried around a quote from E.M. Forster's A Passage to India in my wallet since before my student teaching that says, "I can't be sacked from my job, because my job's education. I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals. It's the only thing I do believe in ...." Granted, that quotation sits next to one from Mark Twain that I put in my wallet during a difficult negotiation year: "School boards are what the Lord made after He practiced making idiots." Considering that I have carried these quotes for all or most of my teaching career, some part of me must have realized that this is what I love doing.
For I do love teaching. As frustrating and challenging as it can be, teaching lets me see hope for the future in the growing minds that I meet year after year. Despite all other headaches and difficulties that this job brings, I feel truly blessed to be able to continue this kind of work--no matter what form that might take this coming school year.
I remember my fifth year of teaching as a milestone in my experience. By completing a fifth year and heading into a sixth, I had passed the 4 year barrier that about half of new teachers do not overcome. My teacher friends who had also passed that mark talked about it almost as though we had crossed a point of no return.
It was my sixteenth year that I finally embraced the reality that I truly was a teacher. I know that might sound weird, but like Mr. Holland (in the movie Mr. Holland's Opus), I kind of thought of teaching as the job that I was doing until my writing would take off. Granted, I should probably have spent more time writing then, but to paraphrase Mr. Holland: "My writing?! When do I have the time for my writing?!" Yet something struck me that sixteenth year that made everything fall into place.
Oddly, I have carried around a quote from E.M. Forster's A Passage to India in my wallet since before my student teaching that says, "I can't be sacked from my job, because my job's education. I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals. It's the only thing I do believe in ...." Granted, that quotation sits next to one from Mark Twain that I put in my wallet during a difficult negotiation year: "School boards are what the Lord made after He practiced making idiots." Considering that I have carried these quotes for all or most of my teaching career, some part of me must have realized that this is what I love doing.
For I do love teaching. As frustrating and challenging as it can be, teaching lets me see hope for the future in the growing minds that I meet year after year. Despite all other headaches and difficulties that this job brings, I feel truly blessed to be able to continue this kind of work--no matter what form that might take this coming school year.
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