Seriously.
Number three on my list of non-regrets is leaving the elementary level of teaching for giving the ol' adult level a try. Or two. Or infinity. (That means I'm never going back to teaching little ones. Ever.)
No offense, young folks, but you would be a mess if Ms. Wilcher (now Mrs. Lasuncet) was standing in front of you in the year 2014. A bonafide, frazzled, messed-up mess. This is true. This is not an exaggeration. This is something you've got to trust me on, little impressionable minds, you.
Trust me.
The last time I stood in front of a classroom full of school-aged children was in 2009. Nah, that's not true. I led a couple of girls' groups in the last couple of years, but to have been seriously in charge of delivering some sort of instructional content to a group of young, soft-and-squishy-brained people happened almost five years ago. I taught my son's Talented and Gifted (TAG) reading group during his third grade year, while pregnant, and it was after teaching this class that I officially decided to hang it up.
Forever. And I mean it.
I didn't always want to be a teacher. In Kindergarten, I told everyone who would listen that I wanted to be two things: a lawyer and the first woman President of the United States. Real talk. I kept that up until the 1984 Olympics, when I wanted to be a gymnast. By sixth grade, I wanted to be a writer and by senior year in high school, I very fully convinced myself that a pediatrician's life was the life for me. I entered college and for two years, even with my background as a youth counselor, professional babysitter, and summer enrichment teacher's assistant, I trudged through Chem 1A, Bio 94, and Math 1C in the hopes of being a doc for the kiddos.
A STEM girl, I was not. I understand the value now in motivating our youth to follow the STEM trail, especially in this day and age. Unfortunately, that's not where my heart lay. I loved kids, and had the track record to prove it. Kids loved me, too. I was fun. Straight up. I was FUN. Creative, energetic, no-nonsense fun, and it made sense that I could be a fun doctor. The problem with wanting to be a fun doctor is you have to want to do and study all that it takes to be one.
Enter dissection-and-extraction-of-sperm-from-a-sea-urchin lab. Exit Dawnnesha from pre-med.
A History T.A. read a few papers of mine and suggested (strongly) one day in an Albertson's grocery store that I major in English. I agreed with him right there in the cereal aisle, and the next day marched over to my counselor's office to change my major. Goodbye, Biology. Hello, English with a minor in Women's Studies. Yeah, buddy! The next two years were filled with 8,000 papers about Native American lit, Irish American lit, Chaucer, Milton, Woolf, and something from Norton's Anthology every other week. This was my cup of tea, Honey, and I was sippin' with delight! By the end of senior year in '97, I could not for the life of me figure out what an English major with a love of kids could possibly do. A teacher, perhaps? Hmmm...okay. Sounds good and fruitful and rewarding! I'm in. I taught preschool immediately following graduation and transitioned to a full-time elementary school gig the following spring. If you can add or subtract and read the year I hung it all up, you can ascertain how long I was in the game. On paper, I'm a veteran teacher. In real life, if I started again tomorrow, I'd be a newbie with no seniority and a lowbrow arsenal of played-out strategies and a very rough bedside manner.
My heart just ain't in it anymore. These kiddos can count their blessings I'm not in it anymore.
I was an okay teacher. Yeah, just okay. I knew I was just okay, and I didn't get better, truly get better, until the final year of my full-time career. I talked a lot and found it hard to operate in peace for long periods of time. The spotlight, as my last administrator pointed out, was always on me when it should've been on the students. Oh, yeah: THEM. That makes sense, I thought. I wasn't the best math teacher at all because I didn't GET math. I was always going through something and I brought it to work. I was a homework czar (funny how being a parent informs how truly stupid I was as a teacher concerning homework) and *gasp* a yeller, to boot. My patience level seriously began to wane by the time my last year of official classroom teaching rolled around, and I wasn't in love with creating curriculum and filling out grade reports. A lot of teachers aren't, to be honest, but it was starting to be a problem for me to wake up in the morning or feel good during my off time without feeling like I had to totally recharge myself on the most basic levels.
Now the aforementioned revelation will surprise a lot folks, most notably my former students. The reason is simple: We still had FUN. I had an awesomely genuine and charismatic personality and kids (and their parents) just ate it up. I was an awesome relationship-builder. I choreographed every last one of our performances and helped coordinate some kick-ass field trips. We played music every day, and I really enjoyed IMPLEMENTING curriculum. I did become a better math teacher during my later years and I could teach kids to write like nobody's business. We had very cool parties and I made sure to make as many home visits as I could. I went to birthday parties, first communions, and rites of passage. My T.A.s and I always got along. Always.
It was fun. But the fun times didn't outweigh the times where they could tell I was tired, frustrated, and not feeling it. It was time for a change. It was time for me to admit that this wasn't a career for me that would span 25 years. It was time for me to accept that I was becoming too big for this too-tight skin. I felt like I was destroying far more than I was building. No bueno. I moved here to Portland, let my teaching credential expire so that it was a very real thing for me rather than an idea, and decided 2 years later after teaching my son's TAG class that enough was enough. For everyone.
I got my masters in Adult Education and Training as a way to FORCE myself out of the elementary school business and into the adult one. I had already facilitated trainings and workshops for teachers and administrators and instantly fell in love with it. Facilitating small groups of adults allowed me to be witty, sarcastic, serious, and no-nonsense in a grown-ass way. I found that I could check myself if something rubbed me the wrong way, and no one did anything very outlandish or immature that would trigger me into bully-intimidating-loud-ass-grownup mode. Come to think of it, being in front of adults made me realize just how intimidating I could be with kids. Yes, I am definitely a no-nonsense authoritarian, but you can't necessarily be that way with a group of adults and think you're going to be successful at what you're trying to accomplish(kids, either, come to think of it)! Teaching adults wasn't only a relief for me in terms of reining in my own anger and lack of patience issues, but it also showed me a side of myself that I was glad I wasn't exposing anyone else's child to ever again*.
Deep, right?
Teaching adults now has also shown me my own blind spots concerning just getting better. Children challenge teachers every day, and it is the truly aware teacher who understands the challenges and sees them as opportunities for learning and growth rather than taking it personal. Teachers don't know it all. At all. I was a teacher who likes to believe she was humble, but I know there were more times than I can count when I just wasn't. I was notorious for taking it personally. Teaching children with an open mind forces you to be humble and teaching adults does as well, for the most part. I have noticed, though, that the way I answer an adult who gets under my skin isn't the same way I would answer a child and I keep that in mind going forward. It's been tough to have to reflect on my own shortcomings with children, even though they love me always and seek me out. I simply just always need to be the boss and with adults, I just can't be. Period. I can be the "expert" or the "professional", but the boss? No. I shouldn't want to be, either. My focus should be on guidance, collaboration, and motivation. I know I did these things as a classroom teacher. I know I did. I also know that the grind of it all was beginning to take its toll on how often I did focused on these things and what I was truly beginning to feel like I wasn't cultivating. It might have all been in my head, but hey! It's MY head, right? My head said "No mas".
I am now in the midst of getting my adult facilitation on in small ways that I know will lead up to larger ones sooner than I think. I have a true gift; one of many, actually. Just like every other aspect of myself, I am learning how to take this one, shine it up, coddle it, and give it room to breathe and blossom. In doing so, I have to pay homage to who I was, what I used to do, and whom I've touched in both positive and negative ways. Every time I prepare to get my adult swerve on, I always give a silent shout out to Jermaine, Heleyan, Bree'aja, Chandra, Darnell, Taylor, Stephanie, Carnisha, Kim, Curron, Deshon, Evan, Patrick, Maxie, Charles, Tracy, Andrew, Brianna, Zuri, Dariyon, Tyler, Malik, Byron, Tiffany, Maria, Efrem, Raymond, Emily, Luisa, Alfredo, DeAndre, and the hundreds of kids I've taught, loved, scolded, hugged, danced-off'd with, kissed, high-fived, cheered on, out-sung, and outlived since forever.
So rest peacefully at night, young'uns of 2014 and beyond. Ms. Wilcher has officially left the building, for better or worse. Bittersweet, indeed, but completely necessary for everyone's sanity and development.
Especially yours.
*except my own biological children; God help 'em. :)
*except my own biological children; God help 'em. :)
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