"Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms."
-- Nora Ephron
The other day I was asked in my new teachers' lounge where I come from. When I mentioned Texas the response was jarring: "Oh, the place where all problems in education originate".
I realize that Texas gets a rather absurd, and quite frankly sometimes very real rap for being a state whose occupants are set in their ways, convinced they are right, and (gulp) conservative...but I had to remember that in this particular case, defending where I come from was not the real issue. Oh sure, I wanted to bulk up like the Friday night football champ whose rival just insulted his girlfriend and pipe up with, "Now wait just a minute, 'gal'", but I refrained, because if there are two things that Texas taught me, it's how to be a lady and teach.
When I lived in Texas and simultaneously decided that I wanted to teach, I knew nothing... except my content... which anyone can tell you who has been in the trenches, amounts to virtually nothing. As a first year teacher I spent a lot of my time doing the following rituals before students arrived:
1.) I laminated until there was nothing left to laminate in my room. Not a square inch of my classroom was safe until it was covered in a plastic overcoat of stability.
2.) I shopped for "cool" posters. I had everything on my walls from Miles Davis, to the Teas Rangers (debatably cool), but I digress. I also had posters of the notorious "Fiesta" that takes place in San Antonio once a year.
3.) I decorated. Wait. I surrender that last statement; my teacher friends decorated. I had plastic ivy, flowers, and colored lights. When the lights were turned out in my room, not one corner lacked for an amazing (and very warming in the literal sense) lighting fixture. *Imagine fried chicken at a gas station. That is what these lights produce: the feeling of being warmed under horrible lighting until you are inedible.
4.) I had every office supply imaginable. Oh, the joy of shopping for supplies! My teacher cohorts can substantiate this claim: You will never meet a happier teacher than the teacher on their first trip to buy supplies. Conversely, you will never meet an unhappier teacher than a teacher who is making their 25th trip by the second day to buy... more supplies.
And it was all for not. It didn't matter how "cool" my classroom was, because I was a first year. Your first year (unfortunately) you are just trying to survive and it doesn't matter how much training you've had. You make it to the end thinking, "I was great! I was stupendous! I taught them all so much!" Then the summer break comes, you reflect on every near catastrophe you escaped and you realize you barely made it out alive. Teaching is very much like pregnancy (although I have no right to compare): If we remembered how bad it was the first time, we'd never do it again.
I am also convinced in regards to teaching and pregnancy that if there was a book, the authors would cut the last two chapters.
You see, in my first year, I made many mistakes. But the kids forgive and forget. They remember things with nostalgia and longing. The real teaching went on between myself and my colleagues.
You must understand, not everyone had the same experience I had. Some people teach in horrible, dark, lonely places. I took a teaching job in a remote, little beach town off the coast of Texas... and I learned how to teach and live a meaningful life. In my time as a teacher in Texas, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by some of the most upstanding, regal, and humble people I have ever met. Most of what I really learned in my first year of teaching... was grace.
I am sure (100%) that I came up with some of the most clichéd, ridiculous, and obvious statements during department meetings... and never once did someone correct me. I AM A GENIUS (I must have thought).
But I wasn't a genius. I was a first year. What I said had value because I was figuring it out... and I worked with people who actually let me figure it out. They validated me when I didn't even know they were doing it; they supported me when I made obvious mistakes with classroom management; and all the while they kept saying, "We're all in this together!".
Here are the real things I learned from my time as a teacher in Texas:
1.) Always listen before you speak... and really listen. Not every thought you have is original and chances are, the person who is presenting information to you is much brighter than you give them credit. It is also plenty fine to sit on your comment. If it is really that innovative or original, then you can share it. Plus, no one likes someone who keeps a meeting going. Stop it. Stop it right this minute. I beg of you.
2.) Lots of teachers were gifted and talented students. Some were engineers before they switched to teaching. Some went on the get PhDs. You would never know it because they are humble, sincere people. They chose this profession because they find dignity and reward within it, and you can do the same.
3.) Never underestimate the audible *sigh* before you speak at a meeting or someone asks your opinion. You have time to answer. You only get one time to answer. Please make sure you answer the question that is being asked.
4.) As long as you got one good thing out of it, it wasn't that bad. We sit through so many meetings; you would think we never actually interact with children. Most of the time they are what is known as PD (Professional Development) [Teaching is notorious for acronyms]. Most of the time they feel pointless, they take up your time, and they are always called, without fail, the Friday before a major holiday. That is no excuse for professional misconduct. You go in knowing that the person who is speaking is educated and knows that you hate their guts in that moment for calling a meeting. You go in knowing that if it were you, you would want people to smile at you and know that it really isn't your fault that you are having a meeting. You (hopefully) go in with an attitude that there can be at the very least one good thing that comes from this meeting. And whatever you do, DO NOT ROLL YOUR EYES OR TEXT.
5.) You are replaceable. That last one stings even as I type it. There is no job too big or too small that someone else cannot do. Teachers come and they go. People have babies, take jobs other places...get into graduate school across the country. It happens. There will always be someone else who needs your job. Sometimes they need it more than you do. As in public speaking, sometimes you have to know when to stop. Be brief, be thankful, be gone.
Texas did a lot to train me to become a good teacher. Yes, there are naturals. Yes, people will tell you at some point that you were "born to do this", and you probably were. I probably was. Texas paid a lot of money to train me to teach well. I sat through many a boring meeting... and I have found myself sitting on a lot of comments that I have wanted to make as I have started new rounds of boring meetings. Guess what.
New York has lots of boring meetings.
As I sit in meetings about unions, my union representative, where union meetings are held, and..... lots of other things that are union-y, I keep wondering... "Where is the training?" You see, in this club, you are very much alone. Well, most people are. I still have my department back in Texas sending me emails, sharing resources, and sending texts to check on me.
I do not think that most of the problems in education originated in Texas. I do not think that most of the problems in education originated in New York. I like to blame Idaho, because no one lives there and they have potatoes. And that is all they contribute in my small mind.
But I would never say so in a teachers' lounge...because I am a lady... from Texas.
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