Lately a question one of my readers asked a long time ago has been haunting me. Seeker once asked if I would ever walk the halls of academia again. My answer was a pretty definite no.
I'm reconsidering.
The last week of January I began substitute teaching in a local high school. While I thought I might survive it pretty well, I did not expect to enjoy it past a vague satisfaction, so I was taken entirely by surprise when after subbing for our French/English teacher for three days running, I found myself bewilderingly and entirely in love...with the kids. This was not supposed to happen. This was not in The Plan.
The Plan, as much as there is ever a plan in my INFP life, was to eventually go back to school to finish a MA or if I was very lucky and somewhere found the energy and self-confidence, an MFA, and acquire a job teaching per course for a college or university in the area, maybe even landing a full-time job with a community college, perhaps in a writing center. Teaching secondary school was not even a consideration. Notta. Notta. Notta.
Yet here I am with an application to admittance to a teacher certification program sitting in an envelope on my dining room table, check enclosed, addressed and stamped. Granted, I put a note on it this morning--"Wait until after Friday to mail this, you fool!"--just in case my four day sub stint in the Family and Consumer Science room this week changes my mind about exactly how much punishment I'm able to take. Nevertheless, my instinct, that deep down knowing at the center, tells me that, yes, indeed, I am going to do this.
I am going to do this, and it will change my life, and there will be no end to it. It will be difficult and hair-pullingly frustrating and utterly exausting and shatteringly glorious beyond my wildest imagining. It will be good.
10 comments:
Yea for you, my good friend. That's the place to listen to, and I'm proud of you!
You are not necessarily out of your mind now. You will be, of course (as if living with Great Scott has not already warned you of that), but the journey will be, as you say, gloriously wonderful because it's what you need/must do.
Love you!
I refer, of course, to the fact that GS is a teacher. NOT to anything else someone could perhaps have thought I meant. I swear it.
:)
Well, brace yourself.
woot!!! Very proud of you.
Your last paragraph is goosebump-worthy. I am so excited for you! Maybe teaching--like art--needs a little pinch of insanity thrown in for success...
Loving those wonderful awful kids will get you through any situations that threaten your mental health...
Oh, i miss my class.
Thanks for the encouragement. You're all a great help in enabling psychosis. :)
Seriously, very much thank you.
Wow, how absolutely fabulous for all those students you will come in contact with...can I come hang out in your class?
Seeker--I would absolutely love it! Anytime. As the kids are saying, bring it.
I won't touch the "out of the mind" part...that's just too easy. ::evil grin:: But I am very happy for you that you have found something that has pulled you in so passionately. All I can say is the kids who end up lucky enough to have you for a teacher will be most blessed!
Lauren--Thank you. Knowing your own high expectations for teachers, I consider this a great compliment.
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