The Pursuit of Knowledge

I had known since my first day in Kindergarten that I was going to be a teacher. I had no idea until I got to High School what I would teach.

I have friends who teach Elementary Students – some even teach Kindergarten! And I say – there’s a special place in Heaven for all of you. I knew right away that the smaller they were, the less likely I would enjoy teaching them. So that means I was going to focus on Middle School and High School.

My preference, like many of my peers at college, was High School. I felt like I would do better with High School since my interpretation of Middle School was that it was TERRIBLE for all the students (and therefore the teachers, too). Middle School students were just walking hormones struggling to figure out their priorities. Even though I wanted nothing to do with that, my first job was actually teaching 6th grade (which I LOVED!)

Beyond the grade level was the subject. I knew from my own experiences that teachers in Middle School and High School had to “specialize” in an area. My problem was that I was amazing with mental math (can’t everyone take a line and put it in slope-intercept form in your head and visualize the graph?) and therefore I was afraid that I would be incapable of helping my future students. I had suffered enough in Chemistry and Physics in High School with teachers who had a depth of knowledge but an inability to explain that knowledge to others. On the other hand, I hated to read, but was apparently good at reading and writing, so I figured that would be my path. I never even considered any of the other subjects. I believed that if I could overcome my hatred for literature that I would be a great teacher. (Is it weird that, “et tu, Brute?” just popped in my head as I imagined my students scowling at me for forcing them to read the same materials I hated as a child?) Of course, whether or not I’m a “great” teacher remained to be seen.

Getting back on track – I went to school to be an English Language Arts Teacher. I was going to show my students how to love reading and writing. I was going to be amazing! But I didn’t know what I didn’t know, which was, even though I could read the materials and understanding them (quickly and easily) my students looked at me clueless. I was doing it all wrong.

Of course, I did do a good job at sparking their interests in reading – thanks to the push of young adult literature in the classroom. I did find myself doing the things as a teacher that I hated my teachers for doing: vocabulary lists were given on Monday, definitions were due by Tuesday, antonyms/synonyms were due on Wednesday, sentences were due on Thursday and the tests were on Friday. There was no purpose to the lists, but my teachers did them so I was going to do them to. It wasn’t until I started teaching Reading in my third year that I realized that is not the way to teach vocabulary – that vocabulary was about embracing new words within the context of literature and informational texts. Lesson learned.

Interesting fact – did you know that English Speakers of Other Language students have their own English Language Arts Teacher, that they don’t go to the “regular” ELA teacher on the team, but do go to all the other core teachers on the team? Did you also know that the ELA teacher on the team needs 300 hours of professional development and the core teachers only need 60 hours? I got to add that to my Professional License – at this point I could teach 2 subjects. Lesson learned.

My pursuit for knowledge didn’t end there. I found out that I liked the social studies classes I was taking with my undergraduate studies, so I decided to stay in school and pursue a degree in Political Science with an emphasis on Public Policymaking. I was ready to change the world! What I learned was that true change happens in small pieces and does not always result in lasting, systemic changes because everyone has great ideas and no one has the patience to see them through. Lesson learned.

When my son was ready to move onto High School, I figured I might as well, too. We were close and I wanted to make sure he had a positive high school experience. Of course, I was hired to teach Reading, which came with the requirement to add another subject to my license. That made #3.

As I moved up to teaching high school, I learned that I was a small fish in a big pond. I was working at a smaller high school, only about 500 students, considerably smaller than the traditional district run high school, but I was isolated to my own little corner of the world. All I could do is get my 11th graders to think for themselves, find evidences to support their thoughts and opinions, and let them loose. I was neck deep in compliance that the love of education was waning. Even though I had moved onto another school, the same teacher mentality of “which ones can we get rid of by Christmas” was still there. How could I make a difference? I was so defeated from the world around me that I actually left education – and in the middle of the school year. I spent 12 months trying to find myself and what I found was that I missed my students. Lesson learned.

When I returned to teaching, I decided I wasn’t going to go back to a district run school. There was a charter school about 60 miles away that needed a reading teacher for Middle School. When I arrived, I found out that I was the 14th teacher in the classroom. No one had lasted more than a few weeks. I had no idea what I was getting into, but I did make a commitment to those students on day 1 – I would still be there the last day of school. And I was – it was a rough few months because they didn’t trust me after they had been abandoned many times over, but by the end of the year, they had finally given in and given me a chance. Of course, the 60 miles each way commute was not fun, so I gave notice that I would not be returning in the Fall. Lesson learned (about the commute).

During my short 4 months at that charter school, I was contacted multiple times by another Charter School organization who had High Schools in the same county I lived in and they needed a Reading Teacher. The first time, I researched the school and politely declined the interview. However, a few weeks later I was contacted again about an English Teacher position at a sister school. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, so I scheduled the interview. I guess you could say the next 10+ years is history. Well, it’s actually a story for another time, but the experience did reinforce the notion to not judge a book by it’s cover. Lesson learned.

Since my transition to the Charter High School I have continued to pursue my own knowledge. I had the opportunity and pleasure to work with the students who really needed me – not just as a subject matter expert, but as a jack of all trades – I spent many years teaching almost every subject a student could need to graduate from high school, except physical science – my brain said no to physical science. I even spent a lot of time connecting to students who were just like me when I was their age – unsure of the future and dealt a bad deck of life cards. That’s also a story for another time. I did learn a lot about myself when I was there – I learned that I can teach math (and I’m pretty good at it, too!) – among other things. I added Math and Music, yes Music, to my teaching license. That makes 5. I moved up quickly through the ranks, and found myself facing the possibility of moving into administration. I worked hard at everything my Principal suggested. Of course, there were 3 of us working toward this position and it went to the person with seniority. Lesson learned.

Shortly thereafter I began to pursue my degree in Educational Leadership, which I completed in less than a year. At that point I was up to 6 certification areas. It should be enough for everything I had wanted to do. I spend a very short time in the AP seat, moved up to Principal and realized within 3 years that the Principal job was not what I had anticipated (or wanted) with this particular Charter School, so I stepped back in the AP role for another few years before leaving this setting completely. Lesson learned.

For the last 2 school years I have been at a K-8 school. (Remember what I said about little kids? Well, I find myself drawn to the middle school students and avoiding the little ones – I know it’s me and not them. I’m afraid I’m going to break them or something.) Reflecting on my career and now dealing with the COVID, I know that my end-game is to work my way up to a position in Curriculum Leadership, which will probably have to happen at a district system. Since COVID, I have taken and passed my Social Studies test – that makes 7 – and I have scheduled my Science 5-9 test – which will make 8. I’m a bit stressed about the test, but I will keep studying and seeing if I can bring my practice score up from a 57% to the required 60% (which is passing). One thing I do know is if I don’t pass this test, it’s not the end of the world and at the very least, I’ll have learned a lesson about what I don’t know.