This Teacher: Career Moves (8/29)

Sometime in March or April (it doesn’t matter), I called a college friend of mine who is a teacher and asked her a simple, but probing question:

“From the beginning, tell me about your day–your best parts, your worst parts, and everything in between. What do you do all day?”

We were on the phone for about an hour. Of all the things she told me, I only remember one thing verbatim. “I love my job. It’s the easiest one I’ve ever had.”

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Five months, an interview, drug test, and series of brutal orientations later, here I am–a teacher in a rural, southern county in North Carolina. **I’m a bit behind the curve in writing this because I’ve been in school for two weeks now, but I still remember my first day.**

Day 1: Who left me in charge? I don’t know what the hell I’m doing!

Uncertainty crippled me; I didn’t sleep at all the night before because my head was whirling and my stomach was churning. I pep talked myself into having a good day from the moment I got an campus and all things considered, I really did have a great one. The backs of my new shoes dug ugly blisters and cuts into my heels, but that really was the worst thing that happened. I made it. I slept like the dead after those first 8 hours, but I went back for more.

Day 2: Getting the hang of it, but I wouldn’t say that this is my favorite thing in the world. Some of these kids are animals.

And they were.

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I don’t know what specific event happened on day 3, but I do know that that’s when I knew that I made a great decision.

I may have realized that they were just teenagers. Not big, scary monsters who were out to make my life miserable (although I know some of them are), but adolescents who have voices, thoughts, dreams, and fears. Who, for the most part, just want to be heard–no matter how childish or opinionated they are.

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Don’t get me wrong–I don’t have my classroom life together. Far from it, in fact.

• I don’t make official lesson plans.
• I have assignments from week 1 that I still haven’t graded (and probably won’t).
• I’m at a slight disadvantage because 1) I never attended a public high school and 2) the North Carolina system of education is much different from what I experienced in Florida.
• My wardrobe could use updating because people (staff members, students, and parents) mistake me for a student–every single day.

But at the same time, I know all 65 of my kids by name. I have a deep, evolving understanding of my subject matter. Instead of following the dry, boring reading lists of the teachers before me, I try my hardest to make my class interesting for and relevant to my kids. They may not have liked to read or write before they got to me, but my goal is to educate and push them to do them better than they have in the past.

I know I have some rough days and teary nights ahead of me, but for now, I can honestly say that I love what I’m doing. And that is all I ever really wanted out of a career.