If Only ...

I think back to my days of student teaching as my most authentic experiences in the classroom with students.  During that time I connected with an amazing (& I mean AMAZING) master teacher who brought out the absolute best in me and encouraged my authentic tendencies in the classroom.  When I was a student teacher I was SURE that I was meant to be a teacher. I was SURE it was my calling.  I remember teaching my students about Transcendentalism, reading Emerson and Thoreau with them, helping them unpack the golden ideas trapped in so much difficult vocabulary and diction from language written in the 1800's.  I celebrated with these students in Fontana, CA, many of whom were second language students, when they stretched themselves to understand and to make connections from the literature with their own lives and the world around them.  We went on to study Beat poetry and make connections between the Beats and the Transcendentalists.  These intrigued kids wrote their own streams of consciousness, pondered social issues, wrote poetry- all culminating in an end-of-term open mic Cafe where they shared their own work, much of it personal, and the community created within that classroom was so close and supportive.  I treasure those memories.  I write all this to contrast it to my experience as soon as I received my credential.  Right after I began teaching and working with colleagues who I didn't connect with as well as my master teacher, I began to be self-conscious and second-guess my natural instincts in the classroom. The teachers I worked with seemed to take an entirely different, "more academic" approach to teaching (what I call drill and kill), and I felt I had to blend in.  No Child Left Behind didn't help that situation any, as we all began teaching to the test.  So, knowing what I do now, if I could go back and change my teaching methods from years 1-15, I would. I would trust myself and know that how I was inclined to interact with students was good and it would have led to student achievement as well as student connection.  This is my 17th year of teaching, and I feel I have come back to the joy that called me to be a teacher in the first place.  I honestly can't believe for 15 years I taught in a way that wasn't authentic to myself.  Sure, my classroom had an authentic personal culture, but my actual pedagogy was off- it was not connected to who I am. For many reasons, this year has brought me back to myself as a teacher. Those reasons include fully embracing the creativity allowed within the Common Core state standards, turning 40 and caring a bit less about whether other people approve of me, making the decision to go back to school and immerse myself in learning again, and the experience of our EDL 630 class where I experienced the mentorship of someone who encouraged authentic teaching and learning.  That class felt like permission- permission again to teach the way that I have always been drawn to teach.  So while I do wish I could go back and reclaim that lost time, knowing what I do now, I at least am infinitely grateful to have returned to myself and I know without a doubt that I will never turn back. 

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