No Ordinary Teacher
When I was nine years old, I would steal my older brother’s college guidebooks and fantasize about where I would end up in 10 years. Maybe I would study law at an Ivy league university like my idol Elle Woods. Maybe I would study journalism in D.C. and become a top political correspondent. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew that no matter the path I chose, I would be extraordinary. And I knew that I would never do something as ordinary as study education at a state university. That may have been the right path for many of my friends, but I thought I was destined to lead a far more exciting and cosmopolitan life.
In the end, I chose to study writing and publishing at a small school in Boston (so small that it didn’t even appear in my beloved 2002 edition of the “Fiske Guide to Colleges”). My plan was to become an editor of young adult novels and be a confidante to all my favorite YA authors while writing my own stories in my free time.
After graduation, I was working part-time in a daycare and interning with a wonderful publishing company when I realized that I was much happier at my daycare job than I was at my internship. I loved going to work every day and seeing those children grow. I watched them learn to walk and talk, and oftentimes I was the one teaching them those skills. At my internship, I just sat at a computer all day. Sometimes I went to the post office, but I certainly never taught anyone valuable life skills.
Once my internship ended, I decided to work full-time in a preschool program. I told my family and friends that it was only until I could find a better full-time job related to my degree, but honestly, I wasn’t looking very hard. I was too happy teaching preschool. In a matter of months I went from assistant teacher to lead teacher to curriculum coordinator. Not only was I teaching, but I was damn good at it. Suddenly, the secret I had been hiding for so many years pushed its way to the surface: My dream is to be a teacher.
Whenever the first week of September rolls around, I am horribly jealous of the Facebook pictures my friends post of their very own classrooms. I want my own classroom! I want students! And my wall-less preschool classroom and diaper-clad students don’t count. Those Facebook pictures give me a strong urge to go back to high school, only this time I want to be the teacher.
Yes, I, the girl who believed she was too special to do something as ordinary as teaching, want to teach. I always have. In elementary school I would give my Italian grandmother spelling tests in an effort to improve her English, I tutored a first grader when I was only a fifth grader and I’m weirdly obsessed with Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All”. As soon as I announced that I wanted to be a teacher, I was bombarded with shouts of “I told you so!” from family members. I thought I was running away from teaching, but it turns out I’ve been running towards it, albeit at a very slow pace, for my entire life.
I’ve started making this dream a reality by applying for a teaching residency and looking into graduate programs at — gasp! — state schools. I’m even taking an exam for my initial teacher’s license. It turns out that there is nothing wrong with pursuing your dreams in a financially-responsible manner. And there is nothing ordinary about teaching. I had some wonderful teachers growing up, and their encouragement and support is what got me through my teenage years. I can only hope to be half as great as them.
As for my dreams of living a cosmopolitan, writerly life? I’m still living in a big city, and I’m still a writer. As long as my imagination continues to run on overdrive, I’ll be jotting down thoughts on any piece of scrap paper I can get my hands on. I can be a teacher and a writer. I will be a teacher and a writer.
