I Am A Teacher

I came into this profession - kicking and screaming, as it was - later in life than most. I was almost ten years out of college already. I was a stay-at-home-mom, and I wanted to stay that way. Teaching found me and not the other way around.

Thank God it did.

I have said it many times: I can't imagine doing anything else. Now the job that I never wanted is one of my life's passions.

The thing about education is that it's full of politics. There are numbers involved; data, policies, procedures, documentation. Sometimes scores don't come out right and God forbid the student be held responsible for not learning. Sometimes you forget to document something, not follow a procedure, and you get a write-up in your file. Sometimes you have to call your lawyer, because you find yourself in some kind of crazy situation. It's nerve-wracking; it's maddening. But it's only part of the job.

Because besides the data, policies, procedures, and documentation, there are these people - these people who are just coming into their own, and you get to watch them become something amazing. They are just at the beginning of this journey, and they make mistakes. They make good choices, too. They have triumphant days, and they can't hide their joy. They have bad days, and they come in with their stormcloud faces. They are too vulnerable to hide anything, even though they try. There is a story seated at every desk, and you get to watch a small part of that story as it is created, in real time.

You get to laugh with them, hurt with them, listen to them. You get to watch them interact and pray that they treat each other well. You get to laugh when they remind you how Mexican they are and how Mexican you are not. You get to go to quincineras. You get to learn Spanish and hear them laugh when you make a mistake and hear them cheer when you get it right. You get to hug them when they are having a bad day and you get to hug them when they are having a good day. You get hand-drawn pictures of volkswagens. Sometimes, some days, you cry and so do they.

And you get to watch them learn. I am so lucky that I teach English; it's subjective. Everyone feels differently about every story and every poem. I get to show them how to pick it apart, then set them to it. Every word means something, every comma, semicolon, dash. At a time when emotions naturally run high, it is fascinating to wach reactions when Doodle dies in "The Scarlet Ibis" or when the sniper finds out he has killed his own brother. When Angel Vargas dies in The House on Mango Street, poof, like a little powdered donut, and life goes on, what will my ninth-graders say? Will they grow from it? Will they remember it? I hope so. Even if it happens in one moment and only for a moment.

I have had bad days. Really, really bad days. Many bad things have happened in my short three years of teaching. But I will tell you what: every August, I am happy to see them come through the door and every June, I am sad to watch them go. I don't try to love them. It just happens. I know now that I was designed to be a teacher. Despite all the bad data and misplaced papers and unfollowed procedures and write-ups, there is a bigger thing happenening. There are people: one-hundred fifty of them, and I am not a babysitter. They are counting on me for something. I feel the weight of that.

And so, every morning at 4:30am, I roll (or crawl, or inch) out of bed to get myself and the kids ready, so that I can go to the job that I never wanted, the job that I now don't know what I would do without.