It is getting on towards Sunday afternoon and I find myself contemplating heat, calories, and projectile motion. I've been sitting at a new coffee shop, looking out at the faces of Boulder walking down the street outside the large plate-glass window for nearly three hours and am rummaging around inside my body and brain for the energy and perseverance to keep going. I need an activity for fifth graders tomorrow that will help them understand the concept of movement in a work of art. I have a large stack of lesson plans, essays, rubrics, assessment tables, and analysis to do and I am looking outside wondering if it would be okay for me to get up and take a break, to go to Bliss, one of my favorite stores and look at all the creative, artistic gifts and things that they lay out for me to admire.
I am on the downward slope of this journey. The acceleration is increasing exponentially each day and I am coming to that point where many of those loose pieces are falling into place. Things are making more sense and my desire to do well is becoming more and more pervasive. I am beginning to see how I can, in this strange season, take charge of the sort of teacher I want to be and move towards it.
A month or so ago, I remember sitting at my kitchen table on a Sunday much like this one, feeling angry about the seven hours spent pouring over books and completing the tedium that is the "Art Content Lesson Plan Format." I wanted to be outside, making myself a well-rounded person, engaging in the rest that gives me the right to claim my own humanity. The next few days brought a well of tears and a reminder to be myself, to be personal, to move my teaching out of my head, out of Microsoft Word formatting, into my arms, my voice, my stories. And although this was an important step, I was still missing the balance between intentional planning and hard and fast commitment to something that is still all-consuming.
Something about my new placement at the elementary level, maybe my mid-term evaluation, maybe a simple progression towards a more "grown up" perspective, I am more resigned to putting in the work that it takes to be a really great teacher. A lot of days earlier in this semester left me feeling far from the teacher I want to be for reasons I am still sorting out. But I feel now that I've had more time to organize my thoughts, more of a space that gives me a conceptual grounding of what I am about, that I can set down these goals and follow the path towards realizing them.
I want to be a great teacher. I want students to come away with deep thoughts, substantial changes in their view of learning and life. I want to be intentional about the activity that takes place in my classroom and I want students to walk away with a grasp of the concepts about art and the world that make me see my life as a journey towards the center of the earth. And I want to do the work today that will make me that teacher.
It is easy for me to complain, to say "it isn't fair," or get upseet that the constructs of our over-busy society are doing damage to my personal life. I can say that college is perpetuating a society that is overworked and overly committed to success as a result of production. And although these things may be true at the end of the day, I am being called to a race at this moment that demands everything. This week, my cooperating teacher reminded me that this trial, this last step is a process that is intended to put me through the paces so that when the greater challenges come and I am outside this support system, I will have the muscles to lift it all. And yes, I will have a great deal to learn for the duration of my life as a teacher, but the intention here is truly to benefit the students under my care. And although, mid-stream, it is easy to say that those in authority over me lack perspective or they have failed to see me, I have to remember that thier goals may be different, their perspective is coming from a place other than mine and I must trust that thier motives are pure and right.
It is this strange place between submission and self-realization. It is this moment in which I am being told, "you must be a teacher like this," and it is also a landscape in which I must daily ask myself, "What kind of teacher do I ultimately want to be and what am I willing to submit to in orde to get there?"
Some parts of me wish that perhaps I could go back to the beginning, knowing what I know now, and try things again with more of the end in mind. I wish I had set out first with this question of "how do I want to grow as a teacher" and go back in the environment of support and mentorship that I had earlier in the semester and try it again. But I think this is the thing that time, learning, and perspective provides-- the ability to move forward knowing that the opportunity is still mine. Perhaps this is the beauty of living the life of a teacher-- there are always opportunities to build upon our own learning. There is never an expectation of mastery, but always an expectation of openness to the voids that must be filled in our understanding of what it means to teach.
And so, this afternoon, as the sun streams is across my dusty glasses and I long to get up and leave, I will persevere yet. I will finish this race set before me and work on remembering that the reward of seeing myself as a teacher who lives well will be greater than the momentary rewards of a free weekend of afternoon of less meaningful fulfillment.
I will finish this race and I will continue to run it well.
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