Because Nursing involves too Much Blood

I, like many of you, had never had any intention to become a teacher. When I entered into undergrad I had planned on graduating prepared to embark on a glamorous career in journalism. I wanted extravagant trips, dangerous adventures, and perhaps a spot on the local news station (keep in mind I was much younger and perkier then). By the time I graduated, that dream had just sort of withered and died on its own and I was left with a whole lot of confusion and a wicked Carlo Rossi habit.

Because I have a brother 8 years younger than myself, I had always been surrounded by and cared for children. So throughout high school and undergrad it was only natural for me to continue to nanny. Then, after college, with my liberal arts diploma tucked under my arm, I marched off and found that nannying was really still the only job I could quickly and easily obtain. I did it full time for a year to save up money, got certified to teach English, and then lived in Nicaragua for a year teaching English to children, adolescents, and adults. At some point, while preparing lessons, grading exams, and teaching, I realized that I had found my zone. For the first time I felt like I was doing something that I totally loved and felt very enthusiastic and excited about.

For me, though, teaching is more of a selfish thing. I love children, so much that I usually prefer the company of children to adults (or at least in a day in day out working environment), but I am not setting out to be a teacher with a huge goal of changing the world or turning some kid’s life around. I’m not saying that I’m not going to try, but after I worked in the group home for emotionally disturbed teenage girls, I sort of let that go. How I began to see myself in relation to the kids that I work with is that I am just one more of the adults on the good team. I see every kid as having a series of pluses and minuses in their brains: good adults and positive interactions as the plus signs and bad adults or bad interactions as the minus signs. I don’t necessarily expect all the kids I encounter for a year of their young lives to remember me, I know from experience that they don’t, but I would like to make one more plus sign. I would like to leave a vague sense of warmth, safety, and love. I mean, of course, that I would love to change a child’s life for the better or influence her to be the next president or maybe even help change NCLB or the public school system, but mostly I just want to love what I’m doing every day and become very good at it.

I’ve always known that I could never work at a desk in an office, I’ve always known that I’m going to need to be able to be creative and in one sense or another my own boss, I’ve always known that I’m going to have to be able to play at my job, and I’ve always known that my job would have to be fulfilling. All signs lead to teaching; and so that’s where I’m heading.