On teaching

I've always been very wary of becoming some sort of stereotypical teacher who lets teaching define who I am. In my college education classes, they made us do all kinds of cheesy teacher activities. In one class, our teacher made us conduct some sort of bogus ceremony where we repeated a cheesy mantra and then held cupcakes with candles in them above our heads. Weird. In another class, I had to walk around the room with my classmates in order to represent our journey to become a teacher. Weird stuff if you ask me. Do engineers have to walk in a circle to represent their engineering journey? I don't think so. To make matters worse, at that point I was no longer planning on becoming a teacher, which made these made-up rituals all the more painful. During my senior year, I also had to write at least three papers on why I wanted to be a teacher even though I no longer wanted to be one.

I think teaching is sometimes elevated to a martyrdom beyond what is deserved. It is certainly a tough job and not always the most well-paid but I don't know if it's nearly as noble as my university professors always tried to get me to believe.

I think part of my reluctance to identify myself as a teacher was due to my professors' forced cheesiness as well as the teacher-themed jumpers, plaques and slogans that just elevate lameness to new levels. "Teaching is a work of Heart." "2 teach is to touch lives 4 ever" I am just not that kind of sentimental.

As a teacher I hated to go to those supply shops specifically geared towards teachers. My favorite being "Teacher Heaven" with their slogan, "Not Just For Teachers." In addition to being very cheesy and teacher-like, these stores are strangely expensive. Given the salary of the average teacher, you could really go broke supplying your classroom with wares from the teacher store.

All of this to say, that I have never tried to identify myself as a teacher but it is something I cannot avoid. After only two years of elementary school teaching, I am leaving the profession and it may or may not be permanant. Despite all this, I have realized that teaching is a part of who I am. Whenever I have had the chance to teach English overseas, I have loved it. I have also realized that what comes easy to me may not come easy to other people. Just as not everyone has the skills to fix a car, not everyone has the skills to be a teacher.

And now, as I contemplate not going back to be an elementary school teacher again, there are things that make me sad. Of course there is the obvious, missing my co-workers and my students. But there are also little things I will miss. This became evident to me as I strolled through Target the other day. They had already begun to put out their school supplies. I felt sad that I had no excuse to buy them in large quantities. Last year, I prided myself on finding the best deals like 1 cent rulers and 16 cent boxes of crayons. Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved school supplies. I think this is truly very dorky but I know other teachers who feel the same way. Since I will be a student myself soon, I want to buy a few supplies but I know in my heart that I won't be able to justify buying rulers and crayons for my time in Maui.

I will also missing being in a school. That's another dorky thing I like. I love being in school. I assume it's because I loved school as a kid especially elementary school. I will miss other things about teaching but these are the little things that come to mind right now.

I would love to teach English to adults overseas. I have really enjoyed every chance I havbe gotten to do that so far. I also had a prophecy once where the woman speaking called me out and said that I am a teacher. Considering I had never met this woman in my life and I was not wearing anything to indicate that I was a certified teacher (ie: a jumper with school buses and apples on it), this was either God speaking through this woman or an amazing coincidence. I like to think it was God reminding me of the gifts he had given me. In the end, as much as I try to separate myself from being a teacher, it's something I know I am good at and shouldn't we all pursue the things we are best at?