Ten

This school year is my tenth year in education.

If you had told me ten years ago that I would be in the position that I am now, I would have laughed at you.

My dream always was (and still is) to be a published author. Teaching was my plan B, my way to support myself and give myself enough free time to work on my writing.

So let's talk about why I'm still here.

Teaching started out as an accidental profession. When I was nearly done with undergrad and had no idea what career I wanted to pursue, a friend who knew of my background as a children's church pastor suggested I get my Master's in teaching.

I'd been heavily involved in ministry since I was young; my parents were always in leadership, which meant by default that I was generally at church. (Don't get me started on the annual women's conference that almost always overlapped with my birthday.) When my parents started their own church, I practically begged to be the children's church pastor, inspired by the amazing kids' and youth pastors that I'd had throughout my young life.

So that became my title. Though my first pupils were my siblings, it soon grew until we had a fun little group of kids. I enjoyed my role, was able to make things fun, and my kids learned Bible verses and lessons.

Years later, armed with my first few semesters of my Master's degree and excitement for teaching in my favorite subject area, I stepped into a classroom thinking that I would have absolutely no issues.

Anyone who has been a first-year teacher will tell you that I was sadly mistaken.

From the fight that happened the first week of school, my first time being cussed at, not being able to control the classroom enough for anyone to do any learning, and being cyberstalked and harassed by an 11-year-old, I was soundly and thoroughly disabused of my notion that teaching would be easy.

Part of that mindset came from being homeschooled, I'm sure. Our co-op was filled with well-behaved, similarly-minded kids who were respectful to their elders and worked hard to excel at their studies, whose parents often worked at the local university in some capacity. So I'd never been exposed to the kind of students that I encountered during my first year of teaching; students who didn't like to read, who watched TV shows that I would never have dreamed of watching at their age (seriously, why were my 6th graders watching Empire??), and who had gone through far more daily trauma than I could have ever imagined.

I wasn't the right teacher for that group of students, and I admit that. I had some wonderful mentors and aides who helped me to make it to the end of the year, but I knew that it was time to go.

My next school - a Dual Spanish Immersion school, where students learned in both English and Spanish - was where I started to find my footing as a teacher, with great classroom management and a better grasp of how to keep my students engaged and learning. These students, while still not from the same background as I, did have the similarity of parents who would push them to be their best. I encountered a plethora of cultures and families that helped to broaden my horizons and made me excited to try to learn Spanish again.

This school also gave me my first taste of leadership, as I was named 3rd-grade team leader. Though I preferred teaching 5th grade, I grew to love my little 3rd-graders. I might have stayed at that school longer, were it not for the new principal who seemed more interested in appeasing the parents than supporting her teachers.

My next school - the one that I was at for the longest - was another Spanish Immersion school. I was back in 5th grade, which I felt was my wheelhouse. I had a similar student population and met teachers who I enjoyed working with (one of whom I still talk to daily). I thrived at this school, as I had found that mid-career stride of leaving my work at home and only staying past contract hours if I was running my mouth or going to happy hour after school. I even learned how to teach virtually at this school during the 2020-2021 school years because of the pandemic. But after a while, the workload of the Spanish Immersion model was getting to be too much. So I transferred to another school to teach 4th grade ELA.

I remember telling a friend that I was glad that I wasn't in an observation year, because I might have landed on teacher probation. I struggled with classroom management like I hadn't in years, and was faced with students who didn't seem to care about either learning or any consequences that I might level.

There was a job lined up for me when the school year ended - virtual, still helping students - until it wasn't. The job wasn't real, I mean. (I'll tell that story one day.) So I found myself having already formally submitted my resignation for the end of the school year and panicking, and not wanting to be a strictly classroom teacher anymore.

Thankfully, I had improved my interview skills enough over the years that I was able to get a job at a charter school as a Reading Interventionist. This is where I still am today, entering my third year with them. In my position, I work with students who are performing below grade level and teach skills and strategies to help them to grow.

Throughout all of these years of teaching, I've still been writing. About two years ago, fresh out of being a classroom teacher, I finished the first draft of a novel that I'm extremely proud of, Awakening. I've had people read it, and I'm in the process of addressing their feedback before I find an editor. I still dream of one day only being a writer; as I am now older and wiser, however, I realize that I may never be able to write without some kind of side income.

But man, has teaching given me some wild experiences - some of which have helped to fuel characters and events in my writing.

Here's to year 10.