On being a teacher

This morning, I had a wonderful breakfast/visit with my friend Kiran. She's a sweet girl who's just getting ready to start her senior year at my alma mater (which still sounds weird) as an English/Theater major. We've known each other for a while, but really bonded last semester in Chaucer; she was the one who showed me a Youtube video before class that made me laugh so hard I literally cried while sitting on the floor howling. Kiran rocks!

After our delicious breakfast at The Flying Biscuit, I did a few errands and then went to Tar-jay for my classroom supplies. I start next week as a summer teacher for the Institute for Reading Development and I could not be more excited. I filled my basket with teachery things: a massive box of crayons, paper, scissors, tape, hand sanitizer, bandaids, pencils, pencil sharpener, pretty-colored dry erase markers and erasers... teacher things. As I was checking out, the cashier remarked "Oh, you must be a teacher."

I started to reply "No," but then caught myself. "Yes ma'am, I am. Just stocking up on classroom supplies."

"Do you teach year-round? There's not usually much call for this stuff in June."

"No, I'm actually preparing to teach summer enrichment classes."

That was the end of our chat, but it made me realize something that I don't think had sunk in yet. I am a teacher. A real, live, trained teacher. And just because I don't have a teaching license from the state doesn't mean that my work will be any less valid. In fact, I think there are 2 important facts about my work this summer.

1) I've been trained for it. Sounds obvious, but it's not like they're throwing me in there with a bunch of books and kids and saying "Good luck (you'll need it)!" I've been working quite intensively since the middle of May to prepare for this and I think I'm pretty ready.

2) I love books and reading. Those two things combined are the whole reason why I'm doing this job (although monetary compensation is also nice) and because the point of this is to pass that love on, I think I'm going to be good at it. Scratch that. I know I will be. Because when I did my in-person training, I had 25 strangers giving me feedback and they all told me that I was a teacher. They had no reason to lie to me, so why should I lie to myself? All I have to do is trust my gut and follow the lesson plans and I'll be good. I'm doing what I love and I love what I'm doing (so far, anyways!), which is a recipe for success. And the thing that I keep thinking is: "How cool is this that I get paid to read with other people and help them love what I love?!?"

It's going to be a good summer