Why I went into teaching...

It’s kind of funny, I used to think that I had a coherent answer to this question. I guess it’s not so much my answer that has changed in the last five weeks, but my vision of what it means to be a teacher and what good teaching looks like that seems to be changing every day…

I've always loved children. I remember when I was a teenager I always loved playing with my friends' younger siblings. I babysat neighborhood kids all through middle and high school and then worked in day care centers, after school programs and summer camps throughout college. People had always told me that I was good with kids and this type of work always naturally to me because I loved the energy that I got when I was around children. Their energy, imagination and creativity are so contagious!

However, my mother was a teacher for many years and a bit of a pessimist so she tried to steer me away from teaching, because it's not well-paid and it's hard work. I was always good at math and science so I think she wanted me to go into engineering or physics or something. But that never worked out. I had the impression that scientists were boring people locked up in labs all day and I hated math even though I got good grades. Thinking back, I was probably influenced by the fact that I had wonderful, passionate social studies and language arts teachers in high school and dull, boring math and science teachers... just another example of how much teachers can influence their students!

So anyways... I arrived at college with vague notions that I liked working with people and loved children but I shouldn't go into teaching because it's badly-paid. During my four years at college, I became increasingly politically conscious as I became aware of many of the issues of power, privilege and oppression that we are talking about in this class and Zaher's class. I finally decided to major in psychology with a concentration in social psychology and became very interested in the psychological research around race, class and gender issues. I began to get interested in the role of educators in addressing these issues and in my senior year, I took an education class in which we read Paulo Freire and a couple other theorists that dealt with the role of education in promoting social change. So I finally had an excuse to go into teaching, who cares if it’s badly paid because I was going to change the world! Pretty idealistic, but I was in college...

A lot has happened since then… I went abroad to Spain to teach English (I originally intended to stay only one year) and got distracted and stayed much longer. I was dealing with so many different things, adapting to a different culture and language, finding a job, place to live and navigating the immigration system that I a lot of the issues I had been so passionate about got lost somewhere. I was also an outsider coming into a culture with a very different social structure and history in which many of these issues play out in very different ways. I also didn't have the formal training, tools or community to help me bring them to the classroom effectively. Another problem was that I was working mainly with teenagers who I had no idea how to handle because all my previous work had been with preschool and elementary age children. One thing I did learn was that I have absolutely no desire to teach middle school or high school. ..

So I’ve finally made my way back to my decision to teach elementary school and the last few weeks have been a great way to remind me of why I got into this in the first place. It’s taken me awhile to get here but I hope I will be able to combine experience with idealism and everything that we’re learning in this program to give my students the education that they deserve.