the one where I accidentally became a teacher
I’m writing this at my desk,
On my lunch break.
In a high school -
that I teach at.
“I’m a high school teacher.”: I’ve been repeating this in my head for a few months now. It still doesn’t feel quite real. I mean, come on, I’m 22. Why can’t you capitalize numbers?!
Ah. There we go.
I’m TWENTY-TWO.
I’ve always been the young one in my grade. Last to get their license, last to meet at the bar. I’m a June baby: That’s life. When I graduated early, I had all these fears about entering into the workforce at 21. Would they take me seriously? Would I take myself seriously? I felt (and still do feel) incredibly young, and that’s probably because I am! I look the part too, which doesn’t exactly help. A few months after I graduated from Texas State, I told someone I graduated and they, you guessed it, asked me: “Oh cool! From which high school?”
Humiliating, I know.
Teaching was never the plan, so naturally, that explains exactly how I got here. Growing up, I always told people that the last thing I would ever do was teach anything other than college, and the last place I would ever live was in Cypress. This, my friends, is called accidentally speaking something into existence.
I’m a high school journalism teacher in my hometown. How on earth did this happen?
Let’s backtrack.
This job practically landed on my lap. Ryan’s mom heard from a friend that there was an open position, and the school year was about to start. One thing led to another and one person led to another, and suddenly I was sitting in the office with the principal and the director of instruction discussing the possibility of a contract.
You’re probably wondering how there’s no way this is actually how it happened, but scout’s honor: It did. One of the few good things that came out of COVID-19 was the need for teachers. Governor Abbott allowed people who were enrolled in a teacher certification program to be hired on as full time “certified” teachers as long as they were hired before Oct. 1.What this means is I started an online program roughly two weeks before I was hired. I had an English major and a journalism minor, as well as some teaching and leadership roles I held prior, and that was about all I was going in with.
I was thrilled. After being unemployed for so long, my self-confidence had taken hits from every dead end I found. The opportunity felt like a breath of fresh air. However, once all that nice fresh air ran out, I realized something else:
I. Was. Terrified.
It didn’t really set in until my first day in the classroom. I had one day of training to get the handle on online teaching and all of the different technology, but nothing could have prepared me for when the first bell rang.
I introduced myself to the class and cracked a joke. I will never in my entire life forget the painful silence that followed.
They just stared at me. The blank gazes over the masks were all too much for me. That whole day I felt like someone doing a presentation on a topic they didn’t know anything about. I was grasping for straws. Cracking jokes that never landed. At one point I asked them what their names were and no one said anything, and I thought I was going to have a panic attack right there in front of the entire room. Yes, in case you were wondering, I did cry on my way home that day.
I guess I didn’t know what to expect. A part of me thought I’d be able to wing it. Another part of me forgot how awkward teenagers can be - how awkward I could be. I hadn’t had proper social interaction since I quit my job at Locatelli’s (Cerca Jan. 2020), so saying I was out of practice when it came to public speaking was an understatement.
Anyways,
I got yelled at in the hallway by an assistant principal because he thought I was a student who was out of class wondering the halls. I was looking for my classroom.
Students are constantly asking the teacher I share an office with if I’m her daughter. Everyone thinks I’m a student. I hear a few whispered, “Oh my god, that’s a teacher"s in the hall. I mean, I get it. As I said, I know I am, and look, young. I used to joke that I was going to be so upset if I didn’t get asked to prom this year, but that joke gets less and less funny as the days go by (At least it does to Ryan).
So now we’re coming to a close of the first semester: one that has dragged on and gone by in the blink of an eye. I’m exhausted.
Here’s the thing: I wouldn’t trade this job for anything.
I don’t know when I realized that I love what I’m doing. One day I just started referring to my students as “my kids”, and finding a way to bring up something they said or did or wrote in conversations with my friends and family. They’re great. They show me new memes and new music. Without them, I would have never heard “Driver’s License” and I wouldn’t be crying in the car and thinking about a boy who broke my heart when I was 17. They’re amazing. I learn from them every single day, and they cause me to reflect on my own teen years - in all their pain and glory. There’s so much heart in room 1866. I’ve never seen a group of kids like my (record-breakingly small) yearbook staff, who step up to any and every challenge this year has thrown at them. I’m so proud of them.
Awhile back, I was working with a student on his news story at my desk. He’s been struggling all year, as a new student and as an ESL student. We were crafting his lead sentence, and after a little while, he stopped and looked at me.
“Now I get why you teach journalism - you’re great at this.”
I could have cried right then and there.
That sounds small, and maybe even a little disheartening - you mean after all these months, now you get how I was hired? But it wasn’t. It was so uplifting and reassuring.
Since the moment I accepted this job, I’ve been doubting myself. I doubt my abilities, my qualifications, and most of all - myself. This has been the epitome of “fake it til you make it”, and I’m absolutely still faking it. Sometimes I get so scared. I’ll pause, mid-lesson, and start to panic. I think: “Oh god. They know. They know I have no freaking clue what I’m talking about right now.” It’s imposter syndrome to the max. No matter how much I study and prepare, I always find myself criticizing myself for everything.
So you can only imagine how it felt when this 15-year-old boy told me I was doing a good job.
I’m learning to give myself grace. To take every opportunity and hiccup as a chance to learn and grow. I might be the teacher, but I’m learning from these kids every single day. I’m so excited and ready to be the best educator I can be for them.
Little steps. Tiny victories.
Maybe one day they’ll realize the strange blonde lady in the hall is a teacher, not a new student.
And lastly, debatably the real point in this post:
cheers to hoping my students never find this blog.
