Man, I have
so much understanding about myself in relation to the world. After college I was frustrated. I felt lost.
I thought I apply to a job (that doesn’t suck up all my time to write) I
get a job. I earn money. I work at job
whether it is great or not, and keep open my time-portal for writing. I was also trying to figure out myself in the
sense of keeping opportunities open like Teaching or going for a Masters in
Library Science or an MFA. So the thing
is I never actually had planned to become a Teacher. But in my junior year of college because I
was a Literature and Writing Studies Major here and there a person would ask, “Are
you going to Teach?” I sometimes would
say it as a response to please the said person because I believed that is what
they wanted to hear. I did start to
wonder what it would take to become a Teacher.
What I really was a Writer, but I normally have too many fears to admit
that to someone I don’t exactly trust.
Besides the follow up question is always implied, “What are you really doing?” Being a Writer IS a job, but it doesn’t pay
bills unless you are actually at the stage of publication. The whole it’s a job it’s not a job conundrum
left me depressed at times as well. But
the question “Are you going to Teach?” was actually disorienting because it
said to me I have to put what I want to do aside. In some ways it felt like a trap. After college I didn’t understand why I
couldn’t do what I wanted to do and why I was somehow barred from doing what
was socially acceptable to do i.e. Teaching.
I actually took a college junior level Lesson Planning class. It was teaching theory. But what I thought I needed was to actually
be in a classroom and see how other people teach NOT from the perspective of a
student in the class, but from someone observing how the Teacher interacts and
communicates with the kids or students of whomever age. I had no choice but to withdraw from that
class. Sorry, but I read those texts
books. But Teaching a class isn’t in
those text books…
It took me way more years after college to understand what Teachers and those with Teaching in mind have. They have hope in people that they never even met. And because I understand this to be an actual thing, I understand I didn’t have that. And this isn’t something my college life gave me per-say not in any classroom. I would on and off deal with depression, so perhaps the people who go into Teaching are not depressed people. This doesn’t mean I didn’t have hope. But it was a different kind. It’s crazy to think, but apparently hope does come in different forms.
