paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary

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why am i not teaching literature

Over the weekend I got this e-mail from my faculty director at work saying she was disappointed in me that I couldn't get this paper done that she dumped on me in a five minute conversation and left town for a month. The paper made no sense and during the month of July I was swamped at work. Then she continues the e-mail by saying that there was the possibility that she would not have had time to write her part in the two days she allotted for it and then I would have been disappointed in her. So I would have had to miss sleep for several nights, or not update my journal (which is incredibly important to me) only to have her not do it. Now I have to earn her trust again.

I keep telling myself that I am not going to work night and day. I have a right to a life and some time. I've been working two jobs for six months, and now with the manager gone I've been having to pick up those pieces as well. The esquire's solution is to be in the office as little as possible. Frankly, I have been slacking off. But I have been feeling happier slacking a bit. There is nothing horribly hard about my job.

I hate my job. But I am making good money and I don't know how to do what I want to do. Which is teach literature to high school kids. Possibly even unmotivated kids staring out the window. Depends on the day.

Sometimes when I am really sad I just imagine myself teaching. I imagine talking with young people about stories, about why people write, about why they should write. I pretend that I am leading a class discussion. Learning together how to think critically and express our thoughts to others. Learning together how to disagree. How to say something is dope and then tell us why.

For me literature is the way people explore the very human need to tell their truth and read the truths of others. Without media intervention. I get so lost in this fantasy that I find myself letting my bathwater get cold. Or that I have stopped washing the dishes. Or whatever I was doing. And I am a million miles away thinking, wishing, hoping, that I would be able to teach.

When I think of using my life to give back, I think of teaching. Young people like me. The student interns are always coming to me to talk about their studies, their lives, their hopes. When I had the vintage clothing store, I had regular girls who came in to talk to me about all sorts of things. I was a fashionable Saturday stop and we would drink iced tea and chat. I liked that.

Like many kids, I was raised by my teachers. I don't mean that my parents are or were teachers. I mean that teachers made the difference in my life that I think my parents could have made, if they had been able. But they just weren't. It doesn't make them monsters. It makes them human. They are interesting, intelligent people but not great parents. Or maybe they just needed time to grow up that they didn't get because they became parents. Anyhow, I give a lot of credit to my teachers.

I had major fears as a child that stemmed from a really bad situation that was a *secret.* When I tried to talk to my mother about all my fears and my anxiety, she ridiculed me. I was the only 9-year old I knew with stomach ulcers. But I learned that I could talk to teachers. Not about the family *secret* but about little things. I could somehow share who I was with enough of my teachers that they were able to keep me interested in living, in growing, in helping me know that I did not need to just shut down.

Somehow every time I thought I was going to give up or my little spirit began to sag, the next day some teacher or other would say "Piper, have you read X book" or "Piper, I thought of you the other day when,..." Or even "Piper, how are you, is everything OK?" And I would of course say "yes." But all that really mattered was the positive attention and the interest in me as a person.

We all know that teaching is one of the most important professions. I shouldn't have to say that, but I just did because our culture doesn't act like it knows it. I know that I am not the only person who has been inspired by teachers. Because that is what teachers do. It is only getting harder to grow up in our country, only getting more violent, and fewer and fewer resources are allotted to helping kids grow up all right.

So why am I not a teacher? This is the question of the decade.

I am not a teacher because:
* When I went to college, I was afraid of student teaching.
* When I went to college, I was afraid of having people watch me learn to teach.
* At my college education students had to go full-time and I worked full-time to put myself through college and could only afford 9 hours at a time.
* I didn't like the teacher education programs.
* It seemed too hard to figure out how to navigate the system.
* I didn't talk to the right people about it. Too many people told me it was a bad idea.
* Everyone told me that I was too sensitive.
* I thought I was too shy.
* I have a low tolerance for stupid people and arrogance.
* Now that I am an adult, I still can't take all of the education classes that meet only during the day.
* All of the adds in the paper say I need certification and I can't afford not to work while I student teach.
* So many people want to be English Lit teachers that I probably would not get hired.
* Our local public schools are horrible and there are not very many private schools.
* I don't know where to start.

All of these "reasons" [read excuses] are getting down to the fact that I have trouble doing what I really want to do. I think it is because I am horribly afraid of failing.

Then I have a host of education system questions:
* How would teacher education prepare me to work with young people who have faced incredibly amounts of violence?
* Would I frustrated about the lack of support our school system has for quality?
* Would I be able to stave out the burnout that just happens?
* Would I grow too frustrated by all of those parents who make unreasonable demands.
* Or all those parents who don't care.

And then there is a bit of my internal Major:
* Who am I to think that I can teach?
* Other crud that I don't care to own, but it's there with me when I think about this question.

It is back to me searching again for self-confidence like change in the sofa while the ice cream truck approaches.

Basically nothing that a plan couldn't fix.

9:11 p.m. - 2002-08-05

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