To Teach of Not to Teach

When in doubt, consult Hamlet,
while he consults himself. Source

The way I think of time only works in an academic setting. The year has never started on the first of January, in my mind. That was always the halfway point. The year started on the first day of school and ended on the last day of summer. For as long as I can remember, “last year” has always referred to the previous school year. You can imagine what sort of existential crisis I faced when I graduated high school. It was a little better when I got into college, but there weren’t any grade levels to refer to, and my brain found it all rather confusing. Then, after college the days all started to run together and time itself has become nothing more than an abstract concept – a memory of something I used to know. But what I could work in a school? Ah, yes, then my sense of time and space would be restored!

When I tell people that I want to be a teacher, they respond as though I told them that I was trying out for the Manson Family Quartet. “Why?” they ask with awe and horror. “Well, because I like the hours and I love the English Language.” I reply. The whole time space conundrum never comes up. If it did, I think people would start backing away slowly. “She wants to be a teacher and she has no concept of how years work? I must flee this place, before it’s too late!” I often feel that education is some kind of taboo field and within it there are niches that are seen as downright unholy. “You want to teach Middle School? Oh! They’re the worst!” Say the mothers of middle school children. On one hand, I guess they would know, but someone has to teach their vicious progeny. The attitude I have encountered over the years leaves me with no question as to why our country is quickly devolving into a confederacy of dunces.

With the odds against me, I wonder why I think I want to be a teacher, or if I really want to be one at all. I latched onto the idea thinking it would be a fun job with steady pay, great vacation time, and a decent benefits package. This was when I was fresh out of high school. Since then, reality has taken hold and I have begun to appreciate the slings and arrows that educators in this country endure. Low test scores, funding cuts, classes full to bursting, lackluster parents, kids on the edge, drugs, alcohol, censorship, teen pregnancy, depression, suicide, and soul crushing faculty rooms – why the hell would I want to put up with all that? Folly?

No. I think that it’s a noble desire to want to make a difference to someone. I still remember all the teachers I ever had who were more than teachers. The ones who gave me extra books to read so I wasn’t bored. The ones who nominated me for elite summer programs. The ones who encouraged my insane class projects and the ones who let me cry unabashedly in their classrooms after school. Without all of these fantastic and selfless adults in my life, I wonder if I would have made it through high school at all. I did get out though. I got out of high school and out of town, and eventually out of college. Now, it’s time to give something back. Or pay it forward? Pick your cliché. I want to be that teacher that makes students excited about learning. I want to see the kids everyone else has written off graduate and go to college.

Or maybe I just want my internal clock back in order. I hope that is not the case. If I get my Master of Arts in Teaching and this is all about how I like to look at a calendar, I’ll be in debt up to my eyeballs and committed to a career that was nothing like I thought it would be.  That would suck.