It begins

I’ve thought about this for a long time. Writing. Toyed with writing a novel. Even wrote a few (bad, really bad) chapters. But what I’ve really thought about is just telling my story, especially my story as an educator, and all that I’ve learned on that journey. I don’t know if anyone would care. Don’t even know if anyone would read it. But I keep wanting to tell it. And every year, #NaNoWriMo beckons to me… just write something, it whispers. And then shouts. So here I am. Of course, NaNoWriMo would have me writing a novel. But (see previous note), I’m not sure that’s what I’m best at. But telling a real story, a true story, that I think I can do. I’m not convinced that anyone would pay to read it - and that’s not really my point, anyway. So I’m trying things out here, on this blog. On this website, the domain I bought several years ago, not really having a clue what it meant to do so. And I know nothing about website design. So for now, anyway, I’m just going to write, and see where it leads me.

I think it’s wise to start with why I became an educator. As a child, I was endlessly curious, to the point of irritation of those around me. “Why?” was my favorite word. Summer days were spent wandering EVERY aisle of the library, finding the books I wanted to take home that week (the rule was, we could check out as many as we could carry, and I was determined to have enough to get me through the week).

My mom tells a story of me as a very young child, and how I asked questions about everything. Once we were on a family vacation, staying in a motel. I had been mildly ill, with a fever, and I’d been given those children’s chewable aspirin that were so tasty (even now, more than fifty years later, I can remember the taste of those aspirin). It was the night before we were due to head home, and we were settled in for the night. My mom realized I wasn’t in the main room of the motel, and she found me in the bathroom, on the tile floor, eating from the bottle of aspirin. (This was, of course, long before the age of childproof caps). In a panic, my parents rushed me to a nearby hospital. The doctor examined me, took a look at the bottle, and determined I’d not eaten enough of them to be in any danger. My parents were relieved. And not just that I was going to be fine. The doctor told them, “She’ll probably just sleep more than usual on your drive home.” That was relief #2… that I might sleep instead of pestering them the entire drive home.

Nope. While my older sister Teri slept soundly in the back seat of the car, I stood up, leaning in between mom and dad in the front seat (this was, of course, long before seat belts in cars), and chattered away the entire drive home, asking my usual thousands of questions along the way.

Fortunately for me, school was a place where my curiosity blossomed, where I could explore anything that intrigued me, and where I could feel wildly successful (more on the dangers of that feeling, later). And teachers… well, teachers were my heroes. They represented both the wizards who had learned so much, and the guides who could help me learn, too.

So for as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a teacher. My mom had been a high school English teacher, albeit briefly. Since she was my first hero, and my subsequent heroes were these magical people called teachers, it makes perfect sense that this was what I wanted to be, too. As a child, my favorite Christmas gift I think I ever received was a goody box of “teacher stuff”. A small chalkboard and chalk (this was, of course, long before the age of whiteboards); pens and pencils and erasers; classroom bulletin board decorations; and most magical of all… a GRADEBOOK. I was about ten when I got that gift, with a younger sister who was only five. Poor Denise… I made her sit through far too many basic lessons on the Spanish alphabet, complete with attendance and quizzes and grades. It was heaven… for me, anyway.

I held on to that dream of being a teacher, all through elementary school, and then middle school, and then into high school. I held on to that dream despite being made fun of by classmates for being “teacher’s pet” or “brainiac”… it helped that I had lots of other friends, friends I love to this day, who helped keep that teasing from feeling like bullying. I held on to that dream thanks to the support of two loving parents who just wanted me to be happy, whatever that meant for me. And I held on to that dream despite people - TEACHERS, no less - who literally told me, “You’re too smart to be a teacher. You should do something bigger with your life.”

I never understood that line of thinking … ESPECIALLY from teachers. First of all, way to insult yourself, eh, by telling someone they’re “too smart” to enter your line of work. WTH? Second, why would you ever knock down a child and their dreams like that, no matter what you thought of those dreams? And third and most of all… how could you not see that, as professions go, there aren’t many that rival the influence, the opportunity, the “bigger-ness” of being a teacher? How could you not see that the opportunity to help other people grow, to feed their curiosity, to help them find their answers to their own “Why?”, is one of the greatest gifts a person could receive? Two of my favorite quotes about teaching seem relevant here:

“Teaching is the greatest act of optimism” - Colleen Wilcox

“I touch the future. I teach.” - Christa McAuliffe

It always seemed to me that, aside from any children you might yourself raise, being someone’s teacher was a way to leave an impact on the future. It was a way to take the optimism you have that things can always get better, and contribute to that by helping others to learn and grow.

So, yeah, I always wanted to be a teacher.

I entered college, and began both my major (English, of course… both because I loved to read and because I wanted to be like my mom) and a minor in Education. I was going to be a high school English teacher, and nothing could deter me from my course.

Until the day I encountered the one argument, the only argument, that made my logical brain stop and pause.

“Maybe you only want to be a teacher because you’ve never considered doing anything else?”

That, my friends, was a kick in the gut, precisely because it unknowingly used against me the one thing I loved about myself more than anything else - my curiosity. Had I been so set on being a teacher that I’d stopped being curious about other possibilities? Had I closed off my mind too soon?

That was the day I stopped pursuing my minor in education. I still kept my major, but at that point I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with it. I just knew I needed to stay open, to stay curious, to what else might be out there. I took courses that seemed interesting (including, eventually, a minor in Sociology that fascinated me, broke me out of my shell of privilege I’d been born into, and shaped my world view forever); I took advantage of a program I was in to travel in the summer (perhaps later in this blog I’ll tell of my summer as a 19 year old living in London, or a 20 year old traveling in China); and I threw myself into our Student Union, the major non-Greek organization on campus. I planned and opened our campus coffee house; I helped to coordinate our spring festival and comedy tours. My role helping to book campus entertainment meant that I received many a demo tape from bands hoping to make the college circuit (this was, of course, long before the age of CDs). In what was a memorable-in-hindsight development there, one random mixtape that arrived was of a band whose music personally appealed to me, but who I knew would not be popular on Wake Forest’s campus. I gave the mixtape to my then-boyfriend, a guy who later became my (now-ex) husband. He loved it, too. Years later - many years later - we saw that band perform in Miami on New Year’s Eve. Ah, Guns n Roses.

But I digress.

And so I graduated from college, unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. Because I’d enjoyed the coffee house and the spring festivals and the concerts - and because I do love a good opportunity to organize anything - I decided to try my hand at event organizing. So I took a job at a local resort in their Events department, thinking this might be something I enjoyed.

I was miserable.

The people I worked with were nice, but the job was more about upselling menu items than about organizing an event. I was definitely out of my element.

So I quit, and decided to reevaluate. I took a night job at the local Burdines (any of my Florida peeps remember Burdines?), and contacted the high school I’d graduated from to see if they needed any substitutes.

They did.

I was lucky because the woman in charge of calling substitutes in remembered me as a student, and had always liked me. So I got called in to substitute for a science teacher.

I didn’t know the subject. The students were only moderately interested in the work the teacher had left for the day. Some of them even struggled to think of me as teacher material, because I was only 22 and my 17 year old sister Denise (she of the childhood Spanish lessons) was their classmate in that same school. I didn’t know exactly how to take attendance, or keep control, or help any of them with their chemistry formulas.

I was in heaven.

That was the day that I knew the classroom was where I belonged. I didn’t know exactly what I’d be doing, or how long I’d be doing it for, but there was something about being in that room, with students (barely younger than I) who looked to me for guidance, that reminded me of the power of learning. The potential. The curiosity. The magic.