Since last week, I’m feeling pretty good about my decision to teach. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback. This particularly spoke to me, courtesy of an old coworker:
You’ll love it. Think how happy you’ll be. How much do you like talking and exploring the written word and it’s place in our existence? You’ll be getting paid to do that. You’ll make a living sculpting minds.
That’s about right. Getting paid to share my love of literature with the world, as opposed to getting paid to fetch coffee and make copies… The only thing that scares me still is the damn math in the basic skills test, which I know all I have to do is review some math problems and cross my fingers. The only reason I even have to take the basic skills portion is because of my SAT score, which is just a few points away from the cutoff to exempt it. My opinion is, just because I did satisfactory on my SAT (SEVEN years ago), you’re going to punish me now, even after I graduated in four years as an English Honors student and a 3.7 GPA? Furthermore, my computer can do math for me, but the computer won’t teach kids the importance of symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire, will it? (But I digress.) Everything else should be a cakewalk, especially the English assessment tests, because, hello?, that’s what I majored in and I lurve it so much.
I hope I don’t screw myself though, because the only county I’m really interested in teaching in is Cherokee, because that’s where I live. If I applied to Fulton or Cobb, I could end up on the other side of the city, and really, no thanks. That said, Cherokee’s application process is different, so I don’t think I’m certified in every county just because I am there. This means I have to step up my game and make sure I’m worthy enough to make Cherokee want me bad (They’ll want it bad, soooo bad, they’re hot for teacher – [I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I can barely stand Van Halen, but that song has been stuck in my head]). It’s exciting. It makes me look forward to something again, which, I haven’t really been able to do since I got married last year.
Super Nerd Alert – I’ve already looked at the 11th grade Language Arts curriculum, and it’s still American Literature and Composition. <3
Oh wow! This is so awesome! I hope that this can truly become something that fulfills you… Congratulations on taking the first steps towards such. 🙂
I’ll give a word of defense for math because I am always interested in things I don’t understand – that’s probably why I’m still straight after all these years. I appreciate that things resonate with you, always have. I see there is a lot of concern, abut the math, maybe about some change, about taking charge. We can’t let our weakness limit us, or more important, we can’t let it define us. As we grow into who we are and how we think starts to settle in, we become more and more the sum of our choices – that’s some math for you. Many times it’s what people choose NOT to do and that becomes a shame. You are going to do this – without distraction. You will do this, not because you get summers off to work on short stories, not the opportunity to have higher education costs deferred, not for the nice pension plan at the end of the ride. You’ll do this because you love the idea of the written word as art, the written word as sacred language, the written word as a puzzle; a key that unlocks the authors intent. Now I digress. It’s good to see someone find their place- their goal. Sometimes it takes dire conditions to find YOUR direction. Its your ambition, claim it. There is room for your eccentricities, they won’t be a burden, they’ll make you a better teacher.
PS: It took a while, but Van Halen can be pretty cool.