I am not a teacher.
Well-meaning people would hear me say this and politely correct me by saying, "Well, of course you are," as if to say, "Don't put yourself down. You can teach as well as anyone."
If I would have majored in education, I would have been able to join my elementary education roommate as she sat on her bed cutting out laminated pictures in primary colors, taking a swig of her Teacher's scotch, and tucking herself into bed just as I was getting off work to spend the rest of the night writing another paper on my trusty Smith-Corona electric typewriter. In the early morning hours she would get out her best teacher dress, put on her teacher smile, and go play with kids. We would pass in the hall as I returned to the room realizing it was indeed morning. Time for class.
By the time I had reached the end of my sophomore year in college, I needed to declare a major. Since I had taken four years of French in high school and continued on quarter after quarter in college, I had become semi-fluent. One of my professors said my pronunciation was similar to someone who lived in "the islands." I could have chosen to major in French. I would then have become a teacher traveling to France, watching French films, eating baguettes and drinking espresso. I could have instilled in young people my love for the language. I could have retired by now.
I didn't major in French. I also didn't major in English because I didn't want to become an English teacher. I majored in journalism because it sounded more employable. I just wanted to write.
While picking up my children from preschool one day, the director asked if I had yet found a job since she knew I had been looking. When I told her I had not, she said I wouldn't have to keep looking for a job if I came and worked for her. She asked me if I had ever thought about that. I said I had and when would she like to talk. She set a time and I showed up to sign a W-2 form. No resume, no interview. She knew what she needed to know about me, which left me confused. The first year my 4-year-old and 1-year-old came to the preschool, I drove a '62 Chevy Nova that had been given to me, and later would show up with our Irish Wolfhound who would stick his head out the window inches from her face as she helped the boys out of the car without the correct stuff in their lunches and a lot of other missed details. I was the mom teachers talk about. That mom.
But then came that magical day when I would find myself in a room with 5-year-olds, listening to them making sense of life. I loved watching them discover that red paint mixed with blue paint swirls together on a big white piece of paper to transform into a whole different color. I loved reading children's books as I wrote a few in my head. At the lunch table one day one kid asked another, "What do you think is hotter, lava or the fires of hell?" The teacher I was working with that first year told me he should know because he was the devil. I thought he was wonderful.
As the years went by, I grew accustomed to the part-time seasonal schedule. It worked great for a mom and doubly great as the wife of a real teacher. When I began the job, the boys were 3, 6, and 9. After 5 years of teaching, I decided it was time to get back on-track with my job search. Five months later a woman I was working out with at Curves asked if I wanted to teach. No, has always been my answer. But she said the community college would hire me as long as I had a college degree. I would be "teaching" adults with severe and profound developmental disabilities. I told them upfront I had no experience doing that sort of thing. They said my preschool curriculum would work just fine.
So I conducted three one-hour classes a day at a group home that was a central location for other group home residents. I would have up to six students who would come in their wheelchairs or walkers and sit around a large table waiting to sing, "Jesus Loves Me." They were more interested in talking about angels and heaven than learning their alphabet, especially since their friends were dying. They somehow knew they would never become independent but would live out their days in group homes having others assist them with all of their needs. Someone told one of them that he would be able to walk in heaven. My first thought was, "He will be able to think!"
The day would come for an observation and a report to my supervisor that would have her telling me to shut the door to her office and have a seat. Not prepared for a negative report, she told me two things: 1) the correct answer was NEVER "I don't know," and 2) why was I not employing the literacy-enhancing technology?!
1. Sometimes the answer is "I don't know." Educated, intelligent people know this.
2. Employing the literacy-enhancing technology. I would need to break down this sentence. Employ must mean "use" and literacy means having to do with reading. The only technology I was aware of in my classroom was the old computer in the corner with a bowling game in which Christmas elves made rude sounds for a student able to hit the necessary keys. Ok, they got me. I had no idea what they were talking about. I DON'T KNOW was my official answer.
Turns out, the literacy-enhancing technology was a pencil grip. A PENCIL GRIP! This supervisor who would neither look at me nor speak to me went to my supervisor to say that I was not allowing my students to enhance their literacy by putting pencil grips on their pencils. There were perhaps three students who could hold pencils out of the 18 or so under my care and out of those, none were literate. They were pre-literate, thus the use of a preschool curriculum. They did not know the alphabet nor could write it or their names. There were pencil grips in the file cabinet drawer that they did use on occasion. The students could not tell the supervisor this information because some of them were non-verbal. But they would smile at me on rare occasions, and do everything they could to sit as close to me as possible, and sing Jesus Loves Me with a pure heart.
I would eventually tell my supervisor I did not want to be a teacher.
My preschool director asked me to substitute at the preschool as soon as she found out that I no longer held classes at the center. Once back in the door it felt natural and I would take another position, this time with toddlers only two days a week the first year and three the next. I spent so much time working on my arts and crafts business that the part-time teaching fit in well with the rest of my life.
Contributing to the household income became more of a need. When I was asked to work a five-day work week with a teacher who wanted me to be her assistant in the infant room, I was pleased to accept. New director, new teachers, new families and an opportunity to spend time with the youngest students at the preschool was something I looked forward to doing.
A room that was generally bursting at the seams with bouncing babies only had two or three my first year giving the teacher and I a great chance to get to know each other. She would bring her left-overs in small pyrex bowls and we would enjoy lunch and one good story after another. Though I did not look forward to the diaper part, having vowed to never change diapers again after my ten years of diaper duty at home, baby diapers were not that bad.
Maybe because we had similar views on mothering and on life, we seemed to care for these babies in similar ways. Our room was well-managed and we did our work while continuing a conversation that lasted three years. A job change for her husband signaled an end to our fun and a promotion for me.
Over coffee and lunch several times, plans were shared with my new assistant. Hopes were high. But life got tough. And then it got tougher. Words were spoken. And then they weren't. Then they were spoken to others. Words believed. Words not believed. My health failed and I lost my voice, perhaps, as my close friend pointed out, because I was not being heard.
In the midst of this, I knew I was not a teacher. I never wanted to be a teacher. Perhaps I was never meant to be a teacher. And yet, in both situations, the children and the special needs adults loved me. Regardless of any so-called complaints, either real or imagined, no one has ever said I was in any way unkind or uncaring toward the needs of the most vulnerable among us. I loved them well.
On my last day at the center I noticed some of my students looking distracted. I watched them closely as many of them were on medication for seizure disorders and seeing a student seizing and not being able to do anything to help is not a good feeling. I did not expect more than a handshake. But just before I was scheduled to leave, an employee of the center walked in with a cake. It may have even had my name on it. All I remember is one of my students sitting so close to me he was almost on my lap. He looked me in the eyes with his innocent face and slowly inched his fingers toward my hand until he daringly held it in his and cried out, "I hold Ms. Shore hand! I hold it!" The others got their wheelchairs as close to me as they could while I watched my feet to keep them from being run over.
And even though I had finally attended the workshop in which I was told I was never to allow a student to hug or kiss me, it was far too late to keep them from behaving that way now. Hugging and kissing ensued. One man had wanted to know if we could go to heaven together. I said I wanted to go with him to heaven but if it was ok, not that day. One of my students had already gone to heaven. Maybe because life was so immediate for them--so fleeting, and often so lonely, we talked about death as being together forever.
When we had eaten the cake and said our good-byes, class was over. A real teacher would have employed some literacy-enhancing technology. All I could do was run to the car so they wouldn't see me crying--because then they would be scared, and I would never want to frighten them. My special friends.
I am not a teacher.
Well-meaning people would hear me say this and politely correct me by saying, "Well, of course you are," as if to say, "Don't put yourself down. You can teach as well as anyone."
If I would have majored in education, I would have been able to join my elementary education roommate as she sat on her bed cutting out laminated pictures in primary colors, taking a swig of her Teacher's scotch, and tucking herself into bed just as I was getting off work to spend the rest of the night writing another paper on my trusty Smith-Corona electric typewriter. In the early morning hours she would get out her best teacher dress, put on her teacher smile, and go play with kids. We would pass in the hall as I returned to the room realizing it was indeed morning. Time for class.
By the time I had reached the end of my sophomore year in college, I needed to declare a major. Since I had taken four years of French in high school and continued on quarter after quarter in college, I had become semi-fluent. One of my professors said my pronunciation was similar to someone who lived in "the islands." I could have chosen to major in French. I would then have become a teacher traveling to France, watching French films, eating baguettes and drinking espresso. I could have instilled in young people my love for the language. I could have retired by now.
I didn't major in French. I also didn't major in English because I didn't want to become an English teacher. I majored in journalism because it sounded more employable. I just wanted to write.
While picking up my children from preschool one day, the director asked if I had yet found a job since she knew I had been looking. When I told her I had not, she said I wouldn't have to keep looking for a job if I came and worked for her. She asked me if I had ever thought about that. I said I had and when would she like to talk. She set a time and I showed up to sign a W-2 form. No resume, no interview. She knew what she needed to know about me, which left me confused. The first year my 4-year-old and 1-year-old came to the preschool, I drove a '62 Chevy Nova that had been given to me, and later would show up with our Irish Wolfhound who would stick his head out the window inches from her face as she helped the boys out of the car without the correct stuff in their lunches and a lot of other missed details. I was the mom teachers talk about. That mom.
But then came that magical day when I would find myself in a room with 5-year-olds, listening to them making sense of life. I loved watching them discover that red paint mixed with blue paint swirls together on a big white piece of paper to transform into a whole different color. I loved reading children's books as I wrote a few in my head. At the lunch table one day one kid asked another, "What do you think is hotter, lava or the fires of hell?" The teacher I was working with that first year told me he should know because he was the devil. I thought he was wonderful.
As the years went by, I grew accustomed to the part-time seasonal schedule. It worked great for a mom and doubly great as the wife of a real teacher. When I began the job, the boys were 3, 6, and 9. After 5 years of teaching, I decided it was time to get back on-track with my job search. Five months later a woman I was working out with at Curves asked if I wanted to teach. No, has always been my answer. But she said the community college would hire me as long as I had a college degree. I would be "teaching" adults with severe and profound developmental disabilities. I told them upfront I had no experience doing that sort of thing. They said my preschool curriculum would work just fine.
So I conducted three one-hour classes a day at a group home that was a central location for other group home residents. I would have up to six students who would come in their wheelchairs or walkers and sit around a large table waiting to sing, "Jesus Loves Me." They were more interested in talking about angels and heaven than learning their alphabet, especially since their friends were dying. They somehow knew they would never become independent but would live out their days in group homes having others assist them with all of their needs. Someone told one of them that he would be able to walk in heaven. My first thought was, "He will be able to think!"
The day would come for an observation and a report to my supervisor that would have her telling me to shut the door to her office and have a seat. Not prepared for a negative report, she told me two things: 1) the correct answer was NEVER "I don't know," and 2) why was I not employing the literacy-enhancing technology?!
1. Sometimes the answer is "I don't know." Educated, intelligent people know this.
2. Employing the literacy-enhancing technology. I would need to break down this sentence. Employ must mean "use" and literacy means having to do with reading. The only technology I was aware of in my classroom was the old computer in the corner with a bowling game in which Christmas elves made rude sounds for a student able to hit the necessary keys. Ok, they got me. I had no idea what they were talking about. I DON'T KNOW was my official answer.
Turns out, the literacy-enhancing technology was a pencil grip. A PENCIL GRIP! This supervisor who would neither look at me nor speak to me went to my supervisor to say that I was not allowing my students to enhance their literacy by putting pencil grips on their pencils. There were perhaps three students who could hold pencils out of the 18 or so under my care and out of those, none were literate. They were pre-literate, thus the use of a preschool curriculum. They did not know the alphabet nor could write it or their names. There were pencil grips in the file cabinet drawer that they did use on occasion. The students could not tell the supervisor this information because some of them were non-verbal. But they would smile at me on rare occasions, and do everything they could to sit as close to me as possible, and sing Jesus Loves Me with a pure heart.
I would eventually tell my supervisor I did not want to be a teacher.
My preschool director asked me to substitute at the preschool as soon as she found out that I no longer held classes at the center. Once back in the door it felt natural and I would take another position, this time with toddlers only two days a week the first year and three the next. I spent so much time working on my arts and crafts business that the part-time teaching fit in well with the rest of my life.
Contributing to the household income became more of a need. When I was asked to work a five-day work week with a teacher who wanted me to be her assistant in the infant room, I was pleased to accept. New director, new teachers, new families and an opportunity to spend time with the youngest students at the preschool was something I looked forward to doing.
A room that was generally bursting at the seams with bouncing babies only had two or three my first year giving the teacher and I a great chance to get to know each other. She would bring her left-overs in small pyrex bowls and we would enjoy lunch and one good story after another. Though I did not look forward to the diaper part, having vowed to never change diapers again after my ten years of diaper duty at home, baby diapers were not that bad.
Maybe because we had similar views on mothering and on life, we seemed to care for these babies in similar ways. Our room was well-managed and we did our work while continuing a conversation that lasted three years. A job change for her husband signaled an end to our fun and a promotion for me.
Over coffee and lunch several times, plans were shared with my new assistant. Hopes were high. But life got tough. And then it got tougher. Words were spoken. And then they weren't. Then they were spoken to others. Words believed. Words not believed. My health failed and I lost my voice, perhaps, as my close friend pointed out, because I was not being heard.
In the midst of this, I knew I was not a teacher. I never wanted to be a teacher. Perhaps I was never meant to be a teacher. And yet, in both situations, the children and the special needs adults loved me. Regardless of any so-called complaints, either real or imagined, no one has ever said I was in any way unkind or uncaring toward the needs of the most vulnerable among us. I loved them well.
On my last day at the center I noticed some of my students looking distracted. I watched them closely as many of them were on medication for seizure disorders and seeing a student seizing and not being able to do anything to help is not a good feeling. I did not expect more than a handshake. But just before I was scheduled to leave, an employee of the center walked in with a cake. It may have even had my name on it. All I remember is one of my students sitting so close to me he was almost on my lap. He looked me in the eyes with his innocent face and slowly inched his fingers toward my hand until he daringly held it in his and cried out, "I hold Ms. Shore hand! I hold it!" The others got their wheelchairs as close to me as they could while I watched my feet to keep them from being run over.
And even though I had finally attended the workshop in which I was told I was never to allow a student to hug or kiss me, it was far too late to keep them from behaving that way now. Hugging and kissing ensued. One man had wanted to know if we could go to heaven together. I said I wanted to go with him to heaven but if it was ok, not that day. One of my students had already gone to heaven. Maybe because life was so immediate for them--so fleeting, and often so lonely, we talked about death as being together forever.
When we had eaten the cake and said our good-byes, class was over. A real teacher would have employed some literacy-enhancing technology. All I could do was run to the car so they wouldn't see me crying--because then they would be scared, and I would never want to frighten them. My special friends.
I am not a teacher.
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