There was one teacher in particular who always told me that I would do wonderful things with my life. As a 12 year old seventh grader, that meant very little to me at the time, but as I grew I always seemed to remember that. Whenever I think of school, I think of social studies that year, a classroom full of adventure. He never allowed us to slide by, but always told us how capable we were and how proud he was to be our teacher.
As I enter into the first years of teacherhood, I take that principle with me, the idea that the classroom is a place of discovery. If I do nothing else during what I hope to be many years in the classroom, I want to bring wonder back into the eyes of my students. I do not kid myself into believing that they will suddenly love English simply because I was their teacher, I do not expect them to suddenly want to become the “next great American writer”. What I do hope for the young minds that grace the desks of my classroom is that they will begin to see that they are the crux of my learning. I want them to know the impact that they have on my life, on each other’s lives, and the lives of those they have yet to meet. I have found through my years in the education system that many times teachers do not celebrate their students. There are lists of material that must be gotten through in the coming months, and although they love the students they have in their classes, there just is not enough time to discuss where the students came from. I hope to infuse life and the celebration of it into my curriculum.
We are all works in progress, and as cliché as that may sound it is something teenagers must hear repeatedly. As a dancer, I have known what it is like to be discouraged; my foot never points the way it should, my legs never feel straight enough, yet at some point I realized it is my body and I must work with it the way it is. My students will enter my classroom, full of angst and frustration that their lives are not going exactly the way they want them to be going. They will be frustrated, because it always seems as if school gets in the way of their busy lives. I want to be able to be a refuge for this frustration, to talk about it openly, and to help them realize that life is what you make of it. You can work with it, or push against it; either is fine but you must be the one to decide how it will be.
I do not look to be an inspiration to my students, only one who knows what it is like to be human. I hope they see my admiration for their progress, both large and small. I hope they see me as a person who makes mistakes, but who loves the process we call life. I hope they leave my classroom with a thirst for wonder and pursue it throughout their lives.
