After two GLORIOUS weeks of winter break, I go back to work tomorrow morning. Like any good teacher, I had a whole list of things I wanted to work on over break. Take a wild guess as to what percentage of those things I actually finished...
So to inspire myself to at least try to tackle at least few more of the things on my list before popping my Tylenol PM tonight (the only way I can fall asleep on the last night of any break), I figured I'd make today's post about one of the proudest accomplishments of my 20's: landing my dream job.
Apparently, I always knew I'd end up a drama teacher. Since starting my job, I've run into two people from high school who reminded me that even back then, I'd predicted that this was be the gig for me. Given that I knew what I wanted to do so early, you'd think I would have ended up landing here a little earlier than 28, but I took the scenic route.
JMU now has a distinct track in their theatre program for students seeking teacher certification but when I started there in 2004, there was no such concentration. To get an education degree, I would have to major in a "core" subject (I picked English), stay for a 5th year to complete a Masters in Education, and add on a theatre endorsement along the way. I figured out pretty soon that with all of the required education courses I needed to take, I would only be able to minor in Theatre, giving me only 15 credits (5 classes) of study in the subject area I really wanted to teach. So I made the bold move to drop the education requirement and double major in English and Theatre, figuring I could always find an alternate path to certification later.
When senior year rolled around, I looked into programs like Teach for America, which offered certification in exchange for teaching in an inner city school, but was lured by the glamorous life of a $150 / week plus housing theater internship instead. And then the West called. And so on...
My life as an intern and my westward adventure will most certainly be posts for another day, but as they relate to my current career as a teacher, I am SO thankful that I took the time to make each and every stop I made along the way.
And boy were there a lot of stops. I remember working on a job application once after moving back to Richmond and crying because it asked me to list every employment I had held in the past five years and it took me over an hour just to list them all. But looking back now, I see how each and every work experience I had in my early and mid 20's built me for the work I do now. Even the four months I worked at JCrew after moving back to Richmond helped build my future teacher wardrobe. More significantly, I learned so much about my work style and personality through the plethora of jobs I held before this one. I discovered that sitting behind a desk as an arts administrator is not for me. Even though the job can be great some days, it can also be much more tedious than it appears: it's the independent contractors, not the salaried employees, that get to do the fun stuff at most theaters. But freelancing from one independent contract to the next was way too much stress for me, and in my case required me to constantly be working a second (or third, or fourth), job as a waiter, nanny, etc. Though the constant change in creative projects was fun and exciting, the hustle was downright exhausting, and it turns out I'm not freewheeling enough to not always know where my next paycheck is coming from. And don't even get me started on tax season with 1099s!
That's not to say that now that I'm a teacher I never deal with financial stress or exhaustion. I am convinced that drama teachers work more unpaid hours than any other position in a school. During the weeks leading up to the musical this year I worked between 12 and 16 hours a day. But if there is anything my past work history has taught me, it's that I would rather work 70 hours a week doing a job I am passionate about than put in 40 hours at a job that I hate.
I talked yesterday about how lonely the start of middle school was for me. Seventh grade was a little bit better, but it wasn't until I was selected for yearlong drama in eighth grade that I actually felt accepted by my peers. Finally, here was a place where people weren't overwhelmed by my deeply felt emotions or irritated by my loud personality. In drama class, my personality could never be too big for the stage, and my emotions were an asset that helped me connect to characters. The other loud, emotional kids became my friends and cast-mates and together, we told beautiful stories.
That is the environment that I hope I am cultivating in my classroom. When I get overwhelmed with rehearsal schedules and booster meetings and making sure I'm giving the expected number of formative and summative grades per nine weeks, I think back to my middle and high school drama years and remember what really matters. I certainly don't remember what kind of assessments my teacher gave.What I do remember is that I was encouraged to be myself, to value the stories and lives of others, to think critically, to work with others, to make brave choices and good theatre, etc.
There are lots of things broken in public schools and I have had my fair share of frustrating moments even in just a year and a half. So much is asked and expected of teachers, but at the end of the day what really matters is that I am teaching my students how to be good humans. I've always believed that theatre is capable of that, and I have seen the seeds of it in my classroom. When we focus on trust, and listening, and building an ensemble, we're not just developing skills for the stage. We're developing skills for life.
A final anecdote: During teacher work week last year, I was sitting in a professional development session, feeling quite overwhelmed and rather incapable of processing the information overload that a new teacher feels that first week. My high school drama teacher, a bit of a legend who just started her 45th year in the county (!!), must have noticed the deer in headlights look on my face, because she leaned over and slipped me a note that read simply, "Don't be overwhelmed or discouraged. You've got this. Most of this is bullshit."
So on nights like tonight, when waking up at 5:30 AM & facing a classroom full of loud, emotional teenagers (see what I did there), for three back-to-back 90 minute classes feels like the last thing I want to do and there are still exams to grade, and competition one-acts to consider, and Shakespeare units to plan, and oh-my-gosh-how-is-it-almost-11-already... *deep breaths*....On nights like tonight, I look at that note, taped to my mirror at home (because I'm afraid to post dirty words in my classroom until I have a little more tenure) and I remember not to beat myself up. This really is my dream job. I've got this.
Now on to those Shakespeare lesson plans.
No comments:
Post a Comment