What it means to be an educator. Hmmm…. It means I must be in school in order to teach in a school. I must be being educated as I educate others. I quite like that.
What I didn’t learn when I was in middle school, was that there really wasn’t one way of doing something. In order to read we practiced phonics. It produced one sound. In order to write you had to first trace letters exactly. Then it was two finger spaces between each word. Slowly that gap has narrowed. But up until about my freshman year of high school there were exact standards to meet. I did not do so well in grade school because of this. I got better in high school–and was horrified to go to college because of “all the work” my teachers promised would be in college that “had to be completed” correctly and in a timely fashion or fail. I put off academic undergrad for a while somewhat based on those daunting comments and went into the performing arts.
Later when I wished to receive a degree for the arts I had to take some academic classes to receive a Bachelor’s. When I did I was delighted by the courses I took. Luckily was able to take only what I wanted and focused in creative writing. I loved my classes. They were far easier accomplished than I had been told by my grade school teachers. Far more enjoyable and rewarding. I have my degree now. With it I teach middle school. Funny, I will hear fellow teachers remind the kids, “You think this is hard, wait till you get to college.” I smile to myself and then interject to the students: “This may be hard, so just get through it so you can get to college. It gets a lot easier.”
