Who’s Tougher Than Us? The Realities of Teaching, Part 2
How I became a teacher
How I Became a Teacher
I didn’t plan to become a teacher. I never even thought about teaching. As a college student I majored in a branch of sociology because I love the subject. But I really didn’t have any concrete plans. I liked books. My dad had been in the publishing business. Upon graduation, I took to the streets of New York, résumé in hand, and physically wandered from publisher to publisher filling out applications.
I got a job at a publishing company working as a secretary. I hated it because I spent my days waiting for someone else to give me something to do. Two years and two publishing houses later, I was bored, and without goals or direction. I tried my hand at selling high-end cleaning products door-to-door. I learned from this short-lived job that I am not a salesperson. I did, however, have a mortgage to pay, and started searching the Help Wanted ads in the newspaper (back when all job searches were done through the newspaper). I wanted a job that I could own. I wanted to be busy. I did not want to be bored. Be careful what you wish for!
It was a Monday afternoon. I read that Erven, the next town over, was looking for a substitute teacher. I met the job requirements of 60+ college credits, so I called. Rebecca, the lady who answered the phone, asked me if I could be there by 3:30. It was 3:00 and Erven was only ten minutes away. I drove over and filled out the application.
Tuesday morning my phone rang at 5:00 a.m. It was Rebecca. She gave me three options for subbing. Fuzzy from sleep, I agreed to teach third grade. I jotted down the address of the school and grabbed a map to see where the building was. This was way before the GPS. By the end of the day, I knew that this was where I was meant to be. I loved the kids. I loved the building. I loved the books and the chance to spend all day talking about math and science and stories. This is where I belonged.
I was called almost every morning. I tried high school, middle school, and elementary and every subject they offered me. I tried out every school in the district, arriving an hour ahead of time to check out the school and work through everything I would be teaching that day.
Then I got a lucky break. The librarian in one of the elementary schools had to take an extended absence, so I remained in this position from Halloween until Christmas. Even though, as a sub, I didn’t have to stay past dismissal, I volunteered to write the lesson plans and stay for staff meetings just because I wanted to. The principal, Ms. Remington, took me under her wing. She stopped in often to critique my performance. Ms. Caldron, a first grade teacher, was about to go out on maternity leave, and Ms. Remington asked me to commit to subbing in first grade for six weeks. She had me leave the library to shadow Ms. Caldron, so when she left I would know how she taught reading, how she managed the classroom, what work to assign, and who the children were. It was a wonderful six weeks. This was what I wanted to do with my life.
After the maternity leave was over, I got called to the school for every available absence. Ms. Remington made me repeatedly teach the worst fourth grade in the history of the world, and the even worse second grade. Every day she would check on me, tell me what I was doing wrong, and encourage me to keep going. We both knew that I was the only sub who would come back to those classes. Ms. Remington gave me the confidence to come back the next day and the next. When I wasn’t needed as a sub, she had me help out in other classrooms so I could observe the other teachers in action. She even had me called in during testing, when no one was absent, so I could do hall duty and see what testing week was like.
Toward the end of the year, Ms. Remington told me about a new teaching program for college graduates who didn’t major in education. She handed me a phone number and warned me that most of the public school districts were not on board with the new program, so I might have to do my provisional teaching in a private school, or somewhere further away. I called the number and entered the program.
During my provisional year I mostly taught social studies, but also some language arts and religion to middle schoolers. Then I got a job (and a raise) at another private school teaching first grade. I found first grade to be very difficult after having taught middle school. Fortunately, my next-door neighbor was an administrator in, of all places, Erven. On Christmas night he and I both took our garbage to the curb at the same time. We started chatting and he asked me how I was doing in my new job. I told him that it was okay, but the pay was too low. He said that a basic skills teacher had just left, and they needed to hire someone right away. I applied and got hired. I felt like I was going home.
Soon after starting, I paid a visit to the school I had subbed in. I couldn’t wait to tell Ms. Remington I was back, and I wanted to thank her for all she had done for me. But Ms. Remington had left Erven to become a superintendent in another district. I never got to see her again, but remembered her many pieces of advice whenever times got tough. More importantly, I leaned on her belief that I could persevere through any crazy classroom day.
