Cultivating a Sustainable Relationship…to Teaching
What is my relationship to teaching? Lately I have been asking myself this question… a lot. And I think it’s a good one, although my answer changes daily.
On the weekend, as I engaged in spontaneous dance parties, made cupcakes, played at the park and snuggled with my kids (and didn’t turn on my computer), I felt a sense of ease, a beautiful balance between work and play. When I experience a weekend like this, a weekend without guilt, without stress, without Twitter, I realize that my relationship to teaching does not have to be the only relationship in my life. That I can (and should) have others, too.
But then Monday rolls around and I jump back onto the hamster wheel midspin and try to maintain an impossible pace for an indeterminate amount of time, and teaching spills into Saturday and Sunday.
As I propel my little hamster feet forward, hoping to gain enough momentum to keep the wheel going while I duck out for a quick snuggle or walk, I wonder whether I will ever be able to truly disconnect, and whether this relationship is sustainable.
I remember the discussion with my husband years ago when I decided I wanted to go back to school to become a teacher. This is after he watched (supported) me to complete two degrees, find and work a meaningful full-time job in community health, and take a leave of absence after four years to do yoga teacher training.
August 20th. The day after I had completed my yoga teacher training. Our kitchen. Mat still warm, yoga blocks balanced precariously on top of one another, tea in hand. Me digging through our black bin searching for the letter of acceptance to a B.Ed program beginning in the fall.
My husband’s eyes darting back and forth between the crumpled paper in my hand and the expression of intent on my face. “I have changed my mind,” I declare, “I am going to be a teacher, afterall.”
He was concerned. His mom was a teacher, so he understood the teacher-teaching relationship intimately. How all consuming it can be. How it can wiggle its way between you and the kids during family movie night... Or persuade you to stay home from park play because it just needs one more hour of attention… Or interrupt dance parties mid move by tugging on your sleeve, turning your attention toward your an email which requires immediate attention.
So he asked me, “Do you want to work so that you can live? Or do you want to live for your work?”
I thought about this and answered that they were the same thing:
“It won’t be work if I love it,” I rationalized.
At the time, the blurring of boundaries between work and play seemed stoic, romantic. It showed my dedication to the profession — to something that meant something.
“It will always be work,” he responded.
Despite his apprehension, I convinced him that this would be the last career change. I quit my full-time job in community health, picked up bartending shifts at a local restaurant, we took on two roommates to help pay our mortgage, and I went back to school (while pregnant). My relationship to teaching already asserting its presence by finding its way into daily discussions and postponing future plans.
In 2014, I got my B.Ed., our roommates moved out, I gave birth, and began supply teaching. My first full-time position was a French immersion summer school course. A condensed reach-ahead course at a high school 20 minutes from our house. I could speak French, but did not have my FSL and had never taught in French. I would wake up at 5am, be at school by 6, and not leave my classroom until 7pm. I would leave before our son would wake up and come home after he was asleep.
The course was only three and a half weeks, but it felt much longer. Once over, I glued myself to my son; exhausted from the stress and needing to be close, I lay with him at nap time and we slept, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other’s air, leaning into the magnetism of our connection. The blurring of boundaries did not seem stoic or romantic anymore. It felt like teaching was spilling into every part of my being. It was taking over, like a good bottle of wine dropped to the floor, rich and red and seeping down down down into every hairline crack of our scuffed floorboards. It was too late to stop now; I could not separate myself from the job that I loved, regardless of how all consuming it sometimes felt.
Over the years, I have managed more balance. But boundaries are hard to establish and more difficult to maintain. I am as porous as they come, so teaching finds a way in. But this quadmester, I am only teaching one class and have found some semblance of sanity. And I have been thinking more about how my relationship to teaching is changing, and how I might continue to nurture a healthy relationship to my profession. Continuing to grow and challenge myself through collaboration, reading, mentorships, etc., while also maintaining other relationships (to my family, to my health, to other hobbies and interests). What it really comes down to is that it might be time to explore a different kind of relationship –
The longer I teach, and the more I reflect on my past and present relationship to teaching (and its impacts on my life outside of school — like missing date night with my husband, or bedtime or park play with my kids, who are growing up too quickly) – I realize that to be a good teacher, I have to take care of myself and my others, too. Because I want this thing to last.
