This semester, I realized that during my four years of being in and out of classrooms, I actually felt less stress. When my youngest brother was diagnosed with cancer my freshman year of college, my only efficient distracter was being in a classroom and teaching junior high students about density. The density lab experiment we did brought genuine joy to me, because the students were so excited about colored water that wouldn’t mix. I worked with babies at a daycare, and whenever I felt guilty for still being in college and not back at home to help my family, I would see the babies laugh when I blew bubbles for them, and the guilt would go away.
When my other younger brother was diagnosed with cancer my junior year of college, I completely prepared myself to drop out. There was no way I could take 18 credits a semester and still help out at home, but I did. I would still work with the babies, go to classes, go to my school placement, and on the weekends I would either drive all the way to St. Jude’s or go home to help my other siblings. I remember studying for a biology exam in the hospital and applying it to the fluids my brother was getting through his IV. My brother was in 6th grade going through chemotherapy, so it honestly hurt me to work with junior high students and be constantly reminded of him in the hospital for months. The pain didn’t go away when I walked into the school building, but it completely changed my perspective and how I interacted with students. Every student and staff member has something going on in their lives. I tried to establish relationships with the students and sit by them at lunch, or I would see them in the hall and wave to them. Again, working in a school only strengthened my affinity for teaching.
During the chaos of junior year, my family had to temporarily live in Boston for my youngest brother’s kidney transplant. That meant that I had to shift from traveling every weekend for a hospital visit or helping care for my siblings, I was stuck in the Quad Cities. It gave me more freedom, but I had no idea what to do with this extra amount of time. I was always in panic mode and had a hospital bag always packed. Teaching began to be my escape from this reality. I would focus my energy on students and learning about the methods behind teaching.
Over winter break, I traveled to Boston with my two sisters to help my mom and brother travel back home. It felt unnatural to be with everyone again, and I missed the comfort of being in a classroom instead. We went to NYC on the way back, but my sister had a seizure next to me in our hotel. She had never had one before, and now we have 3/5 kids with a medical condition. I was past the point of being burnt out. I didn’t want to do anything and just needed to be left alone for several months. When school resumed, I completely dreaded the semester. I knew I had to be placed at a school again, but I didn’t think I had any patience left.
My last placement was incredibly rewarding and was exactly why I wanted to teach. I found out that my new placement was at a high school, and the classes I was observing were mostly upper level biology courses. This was exactly what I didn’t want. I did not want to teach high schoolers, and I certainly did not want to teach students that were only 2-3 years younger than me. However, I convinced myself that I didn’t like something before I actually tried it. It was like how I had to convince the babies that the gross boiled broccoli was actually yummy.
By the time I had to leave my spring school placement, because of the pandemic, I felt disheartened that I was never able to properly thank the students. They had to endure my attempts of “helping” them, when they probably just wanted to work with their friends. There were some students that changed my perspective about teaching. Some students knew that I was uncomfortable walking into a brand new classroom and went out of their way to help ease me. As much as I dreaded being the stranger in a classroom, I learned that I completely missed it when I learned we could no longer complete our hours at our placements.
As the summer went on, I questioned if I should actually pursue education. Every time I envisioned myself leading a classroom, I felt incredibly scared and thought that I would have a better chance at life if I chose a completely different route. Leading students seemed like an overwhelming task. Throughout my four years in university, most people told me to switch majors. Some told me that I am too smart to be a teacher (um, this is completely false in more than one way?); I won’t last with the current education system; the benefits will never outweigh the pay; I have no idea what I am getting myself into; and the list went on.
I still felt completely dejected after the summer ended. This was going to be my last semester until student teaching- my nightmare come true. I was going to use this semester to do what I wanted to. One of my childhood dreams was to work in a bakery before college courses and play a piano on campus, so I did exactly that. I would have a routine of working in the morning, going to class, and practicing the piano. If there had to be a semester that I felt like I should completely choose teaching over anything else, it was this semester.
Working in a bakery can be fun, but it cannot be my career at this time in my life. I knew that one was out. This semester I also had science-heavy courses with only one education course. Over time I found myself trying to get through my classes, but every time I had to write a lesson plan, my creativity sparked and I put my everything into it. During quarantine, I have especially gotten to know myself, and I know that I seldom put my everything into something. I tried to find the spark in baking, going on philosophy tangents, fashion, and even the piano. I realized this semester that the only thing that I had easily and readily put my all into something was anything that dealt with education. When I wrote lesson plans and imagined it all happening in real life, I could not stop typing on the document. There was constant creativity flowing, and the best part about it was that I didn’t want to stop.
With some restrictions lifted, I was able to return back to a youth group I had helped in the past. Talking to kids and teenagers again gave me a sense of, “Okay, I actually like working with this age group.” The people who decided for me that I shouldn’t be a teacher faded away. I will admit that it still terrifies me to student teach and to ever have my own classroom with real students that I will constantly work with, but I can’t let fear and the voices of others to throw away one of the only things that I can give my all to.