When Life Throws You a Curveball, Make Lemonade (and Mix Your Metaphors)

Welcome to my second article about my journey to become an English teacher fifteen years into my career. There have already been some twists and turns in this saga, including the fact that I wanted to become a teacher at all, something I had previously said I would never do.

Why had I ruled out teaching? I remember in high school I served as a T.A. one semester for my chemistry teacher, mixing solutions and cleaning equipment to help her prepare. On occasion, I was also tasked with grading some quizzes and tests, though never for the class I was in, obviously. There were always at least a handful of people who turned in completely blank pages, just their name at the top and not a single answer filled out. I remember that being the moment I decided I could never be a teacher. I simply could not come up with a reason someone wouldn’t even try to answer the questions, especially because in my mind some of these questions were incredibly easy. I remember thinking I would never have the patience to deal with that.

As an adult, and one that has worked in EdTech for years, I know there are a lot of misconceptions I had then. To judge people based on one piece of paper was incredibly shallow on a number of levels. Just because I thought something was easy, didn’t mean it was easy for everyone. I had incredible support at home, loved learning, and the educational environment was pretty much made for people like me. Knowing now what I know about learning, educational psychology, and systemic inequality, I would never come to that conclusion.

Honestly, I can’t believe it took me so long to realize that the reasons I had previously decided I would never be a teacher no longer existed. If anything, those same experiences are what is now driving me towards the profession – I want to be someone that can keep students from slipping through the cracks when their educational environment has let them down.

When embarking on this journey I talked to a lot of teachers I know about why they chose to teach at specific grade levels. My high school history teacher cousin echoed something that had been bouncing around in my head. He said he didn’t have great history teachers in high school, and he wanted to be the teacher he never got. Even though it was a text, I felt myself physically nodding my head while I was reading. I definitely felt like my middle school English classes were not what I needed, backed up by the fact that my parents actually assigned us outside book reports to make sure we gained the skills we needed. (This was pretty upsetting at 12, but I have come to appreciate it.)

I could be the middle school English teacher I never had. I started researching the literature that tends to be taught at that level, getting increasingly excited about ways to introduce diverse voices and make sure I could prepare kids to succeed in high school. When I got into my teacher residency program, I gave them my preferences for schools and grade level, confident that there would be a match.

Last week I received my assignment – I had been placed at my number one school of choice. I was not prepared for my reaction to the rest. I would be paired with a teacher in an 11th grade classroom, teaching AP English Literature and Language.

My response to this?

Utter joy.

I wish I could explain to you why this didn’t give me whiplash or upset me after I felt so confident in my choice of middle school. By the end of the year, I will have my credential to teach English for 6th-12th grade, so if I do decide to move to middle school afterwards, it won’t be a problem. I wish I could say I have figured out exactly why this has made me so happy. Maybe it’s because I am a little odd and actually like taking tests, and I know that quality can help students facing these big exams. Maybe it’s because it widens the scope of the kind of books and stories I can teach, and also includes the study of the English language, which is so weird and fun. (I’m extremely excited to break out my college grammar book I’ve kept all these years while I got rid of most of my other textbooks.) At the end of the day, the why won’t really matter.

So, this is one more step forward on my journey into my new career. And what a happy step it is.

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