Time Flies---
In August of 2000, I was a student teacher at Greenspun Jr.
High, and was embarking on 9 months of a new identity. To those 150 6th
graders, I was their teacher. To everyone else, I was probably just an
idealistic 24-year-old who believed she could make a difference in the world.
Yet, for 18 more Augusts, I started a new school year, almost always as an
idealist who believed she could change the world. It’s hard to believe that my
first day as a teacher was that many years and over 3,000 students ago.
However, last April, I left school on a Thursday and didn’t
return. My exit was not an act of resistance or civil disobedience, but an
opportunity. Now, as I start year 19 as an educator, I am sitting in an office
instead of at a teacher’s desk, ever the idealist. I have high hopes that I
will make a difference this year, even if it is behind the scenes versus in
front of a classroom.
After all those years and all those students, I never
thought that I would leave the classroom, but here I am.
The Here and Now---
This past Monday, I dropped my 14 year-old off at her first
day of 9th grade, and I dropped my 10-year-old off at her first day
of 5th grade. I was able to do this, for the first time since they
started going to school, because I am no longer a classroom teacher. I got to
be the mom of two wonderful kids starting their first day of school. It made
the fact that I wasn’t about greet my own students for the first time worth it.
Kind of an interesting paradigm shift for someone who meticulously decorated
her classroom, wrote long-term lesson plans before school even started, and was
ALWAYS thinking “how could I use this
in class?”
Let your Life be a Counter-Friction---
I had many great years in the classroom, and for a long
while I could see myself teaching until I was old and grey.
I taught high school English for 17 years, and the
literature I selected for my classroom was meant to inspire thinking and to
inspire action. I gave great thought to what
I shared with my students, as I felt that they deserved to read pieces that
spoke to them morally, viscerally, emotionally, or civically. As any teacher should admit, sometimes I
picked pieces that my students hated, yet with time and experience, I curated
readings and activities that I felt not only built the needed college and
career readiness skills, but in some small way made my students better
thinkers, better communicators, and better humans.
In 1849, a young idealist Named Henry David Thoreau wrote,
“Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine/ For
it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done
is done forever…” Every time we read those words in class, I knew that they
were trying to tell me something. You see, teaching isn’t the act of delivering
information, it’s part of the learning process. I was learning with my students. Though it took years
for me to uncover the message especially meant for me in the literature I
shared with them, the pieces starting coming together.
In 1965, another writer with ambitious
ideals said, “Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just
cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.”
Be it a 19th century philosopher or a modern activist like Malcolm
X, I tried to never teach with the intent to assess, but to teach with the
intent to learn. As I shared play after poem after novel after essay after film
and so on with my students I began to unearth something. I was riveted by the inspirational,
raw, and honest words of the writers we studied. I found the language
beautiful, the structure masterful. Beyond that, however, I realized that these
pieces weren’t just tools or curriculum; they were meant to be ingested and
talked about and explored deeply.
The More You Know---
The more I taught, the more I learned.
I learned that I didn’t always agree with the system. I learned that I had
difficulty lending myself to procedures that were inequitable for students. I
learned that I needed to diversify my bookshelf. I learned that I needed to
talk less and listen more. I learned that I was angry, and it was time to be
the counter-friction.
From within the classroom, my
opportunities to lead change were limited. Being a classroom teacher is by
nature isolating. Our time to communicate with one another is dictated by bells
and contract times. It’s often difficult, if not impossible to have hard
conversations—those take time and vulnerability, and trust. All things that are
hard to build in 28 minutes one time per week.
So, I looked at ways to enact change,
grow as a person and as a professional. I wasn’t ready to leave the classroom,
but I couldn’t sit idly by and “cry over my condition.” My colleagues weren’t
always ready to embark on the heavy lifting required to enact institutional
change. Honestly, I probably wasn’t ready either, but I felt that I would be
functioning as a hypocrite each time I facilitated a discussion with my
students, and that was something I could no longer do.
Step by Step---
A summer professional development
session in the summer of 2014 was this first step. The four weeks I spent with
the amazing instructors at the Southern Nevada Writing Project’s Summer
Institute pushed me to not only discover but to write about and articulate my
hopes and regrets about education.
From there it was the National Writing
Project inviting me and educators from around the country to spend a “Day on
the Hill” advocating for education. I was hooked.
That led to the not just a step, but a
leap. I was still in the classroom, but in 2016 I split my time between
teaching English at an art school in Las Vegas and working out of the U.S.
Department of Education in Washington D.C. Surreal is an understatement. It was a challenging, scary, educational,
confusing, and amazing year. It went by so fast. In that year I not only
learned about Federal Education Policy and the inner working of the Department
of Education, I learned I knew little about the inner workings of the state in
which I was meant to represent.
After a whirlwind year, I knew that I
truly belonged in Nevada and I truly belonged within its education system. Now
I just had to convince everyone else.
#VegasStrong/ Home Means Nevada---
The 2017-2018 school year was harder
than I thought it would be. I was teeming with ideas, ready to act, frustrated
with policies and antiquated procedures. I had knowledge and experience and was
ready to make things happen. You know that saying, about a tree falling in a
forest? Well, I was the metaphorical tree.
Again I was faced with the isolation of
being a teacher. Though I worked in a hybrid-role, allowing me some flexibility
with my schedule, I struggled professionally to make the strides I imagined I
would make. Working in a hybrid-role was rewarding, as I was able to carry a
class load of 140 students across 4 periods, as well as work on arts
integration, community involvement, and professional development. The thing
about hybrid-roles, however, is that they are few and far between, especially
where I was in one. To the teachers at my school I was either a valuable
resource, or that person who only “worked” every other day. Though I enjoyed
the leadership opportunity, I was still searching for the place where I could
continue to cultivate my skills, and start to see tangible results in wanting
to change things for the better in the system where I went to school, taught,
and now sent my own children.
Half way through the school year, I
applied for a job at the state Department of Education. By April, I was packing
up and moving into my office at the state Department of Education. Ideally, I
would have loved to have stayed until the end of May when the school year
concluded, but sometimes the knock of opportunity comes at a time that is not
always convenient.
After all those years and all those students, I never
thought that I would leave the classroom, but here I am.
Where Do I Go From Here?---
The 2018-2019 school year started 4
days ago. While my former colleagues are kicking off a new school year, I am
still trying to change the world, at least the world of education, while also
determining exactly where I fit in. I am learning, and growing, and thinking
everyday how I can make an impact.
I miss hearing bad jokes from teenagers
everyday. I miss being the one who tells them stories about Sylvia Plath and
Jason Reynolds. I miss seeing the look on their faces when they realize how
Social Darwinism, Intersectionality, and Social Justice are all parts of
English class.
It saddens me to think that I had to
leave behind what I love to try and better what I love. I still don’t agree
with many of the structures of the educational system, but I have moved beyond
angry to active. I left so I could make a far-reaching difference. Ironically,
I’m only on a 1-year contract, and only have the proverbial 28-minutes, to
build institutional change.
I know I won’t move any mountains this
year, but I might push the rock enough times that it sticks instead of rolling
back down the hill. From there, I will find a stone, and use it to step into
the next role that will hopefully move me closer to achieving the goal of being
the “counter-friction.”
I’ve said it more times than I care to
admit, but I am READY. I am ready to be the change, to speak up, to
get things done. I’m ready, and I
guess I have to get comfortable accepting the fact that others might not
be.
Ready or not, here I come.
In the words of Thoreau, mixed with a
few of my own:
“A State [of education] which bore this kind of
fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way
for a still more perfect and glorious State [of education], which also I have
imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.”
Forever
the idealist, always a teacher, never giving up.
#thisteachersjourney
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