Thoughts on What Inspired Me to Teach and How My Expectations Lined up With Reality

I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. Of course, I had a few short-lived fantasies here and there, like becoming an astronaut or an archaeologist (strange, I know) but I always returned to teaching. When I was in first grade I remember coming home and drawing a picture of Mrs. Wiley writing on the whiteboard, and I clearly recall thinking how much I wanted to be like her. In Mrs. Wiley’s class I loved spelling tests and I always thought it was fun to study for them. By the time I was in third grade, I would invite my friends over and convince them to participate in made-up spelling bees. I would tell them a word and they all had to take turns spelling it out loud. I got upset one time because I thought “instrument” was spelled “instrament,” and when I got my own word wrong, I was really embarrassed. Around 6^th grade I started making multiple-choice vocabulary tests for my parents. I would look in a dictionary or thesaurus and find the weirdest words I could, and then I’d type it on the computer with a few potential definitions. After printing out the tests, I would give them to my parents and then grade them with much enjoyment. It never occurred to me until now what a strange hobby that was for a 6^thgrader, but I guess it shows how much of an interest I had in language arts. In 7^th grade and 8^thgrade I won the school spelling bee, but when I went to the regional competitions I lost on the words “adoboe” (which I had never heard of) and “bonanza” (which I knew how to spell, but I messed up because I was nervous).

In addition to spelling, and vocabulary, I also had an interest in reading and writing. My parents would read me novels every night when I was little like The Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Alice In Wonderland, orTreasure Island, and when I got a little older we would read more complicated books like Harry Potter out loud to each other. My parents also always encouraged me to write my own stories, and I had tons of journals with short stories and poems inside. Throughout high school I continued to write, and I saw reading for English class as a fun activity, not just as something I had to do. I suppose it’s always been clear to me that I wanted to get a job relating to English (never once did I consider pursuing math or science, although Forensic Science interested me briefly because I liked the writing analysis part), and it was not until my Sophomore year  of college that I decided to set my dream of being a teacher in motion. I never really thought about how significantwords (reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar) have always been in my life, but when I look back on the things I have always enjoyed, it is clear to me now that English is the best field for me.

When I get a job teaching high school in “the real world,” I want my classroom to be as comfortable and fun as possible. I remember in middle school I had a teacher who put chili pepper lights around her marker board, so that everyone’s eyes were naturally drawn to it. In high school, my French teacher had one wall covered with a beautiful mural of the Eiffel tower painted by a student. I also had one English teacher with a couch in her room, and a water heater for tea and cocoa. Being in her room made me feel at ease, almost like I was in a friend’s room rather than a classroom. My art teacher kept candy in her classroom, and let us all sit in comfortable “rolly-chairs” like the ones most teachers sit on.  Another teacher hung colorful scarves around the windows, and one even put up posters of her favorite movies and rock bands. I have numerous memories of the ways my teachers enhanced their classrooms over the years, and when I have my own classroom, I want to keep those things in mind. Ideally, I will display student work all over the walls, and accent the room with calming colors. I want to make the room a comfortable place where the students feel safe in their environment but not toocomfortable to get their work done. I want to incorporate aspects of my favorite classrooms over the years.

One of the most inspiring teachers I ever had was my 11^th grade Accelerated English teacher.  I took her class when I was a Senior, because I spent my Junior year abroad. I learned more from that teacher in one year than I did in the 3 years of secondary schooling I had before that. She assigned a giant workload, which was hard to keep up with at times. However, she was strict enough that she got everyone to participate and complete their work, yet nice enough to keep people from resenting her. The things she assigned were more than busywork, which is probably what I liked most about her class. She taught interesting lessons that provided context for the stories we read, and she assigned amazing projects that inspired a lot of us to use our creativity. We learned how to write all kinds of papers (persuasive and 5-paragraph essays, research papers, resumes, etc) and to this day I still use the knowledge I learned in her class. We read Macbeth, and she had us read in a circle together, stopping us every few lines to explain what was going on and ask if we had any questions or comments. It may sound like overkill, but I would still struggle with Shakespeare if it weren’t for that class. She also showed us clips of the same scenes from all different movie versions of Macbeth, and asked us to write or talk about which clips best portrayed our understanding of the scene. I thought a lot of her lessons were brilliant, and she was one of the most influential people for me in high school. Her class was largely what inspired me to be an English teacher.

As I reflect on what initially attracted me to teaching, I find that my actual experience with teaching has been everything I expected and looked forward to. I have not only been able to design my own lessons that teach, inspire, and excite the students; but I have been able to create a fun and safe learning environment for my students. Additionally, I have loved getting to know all the students and seeing their brains work when they analyze, write, read, discuss and participate in classroom activities. So far, teaching has definitely been rewarding for me.

There are a few things that I was not fully prepared for when I first began teaching, but I have improved upon those things since then. Classroom management was one of the parts of teaching that I understood in theory, but it wasn’t something I was skilled in until I had been teaching for a while. I have found that, for the most part, efficient classroom management is like fluency in a new language: it isn’t something you will be able to fully understand or grasp until you immerse yourself in it. I could tell a person everything one needed to know about classroom management, yet when it came time to implement the skills I learned, I found that the situation was different than how I pictured it. The students were never blatantly disrespectful or rude to me, and they never did anything to warrant a referral or any form of serious punishment. The only problem I had was that there would be side conversations while I was talking, during movies, or while the classes were reading independently. I felt that these weren’t terrible infractions on the students’ parts, but they still needed to be addressed.

After a my second week of teaching, I had the students write mini evaluations for me, on which they wrote two things they liked/things I did well and two things they disliked/I needed to improve on. To my delight, I got glowing reviews…but the one thing that I kept seeing over and over was that I needed to “get mean” or “be more confident” when disciplining people who wouldn’t stop talking. After reading those evaluations and hearing the same feedback on that issue over and over, I knew I had to do something. So, I decided to adapt what I had learned about classroom management in order to apply it to my current situation. I couldn’t manage a classroom with new routines (my mentor teacher’s old routines had already been too deeply engrained in their minds), as I had been told to do at SPU. I couldn’t send people to the principal, because they weren’t disrupting the class in a serious or malicious way . I couldn’t yell, because it’s not my personality and I’m never angry enough to have that kind of reaction. I couldn’t send people out in the hall, because I wanted them to be present for the lesson. Instead, I solved the problem in a number of ways: I made a seating chart, I spoke more sternly, and I told students that they would lose daily participation points for having side conversations. These strategies worked beautifully!

Once the classroom was under control, I was able to deliver lessons more efficiently and ensure that all the students were listening and participating productively. Since then, my teaching experiences have been great, for the most part. Teaching is definitely a LOT of work, and it can be hard to try and fill the shoes of my mentor teachers. Occasionally there are days when I am tired and surly and my lessons suffer mildly, but I am always able to bounce back. Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased with my teaching experience. Seeing my students excited and engaged in the lessons makes everything worth the effort!