Write About What You Know

I have never really blogged before, but because I am a teacher, and I tell my students they should write, then I have felt strongly that I should write as well.  Of course, then the thoughts started about what I should write about.  I could write about my family, but not everyone wants to know about my family; I could write about the crazy dreams I have, but too often, they just end with no resolution; or I could write about my daily life and hope that someday maybe my great-grandkids will read it and get to know me.  However, all of these ideas just kind of fizzled out, and the thought that kept coming to my mind was to write about what I know.  After all, growing up and through all of my college courses, and author visits, and discussions with friends about what I would write if I ever wrote any thing, the advice was to write about what you know.  So, I have decided to write about what I know, and what I know is teaching.

From the time I was in the second grade, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher.  I would line my dolls up on the side of my bed, and we would have story time.  I had roll books and grade books for my paper dolls, and yes, I kept actual grades for them in those books.  When I played with my Barbie dolls, I always had at least one of them who was going to school to be a teacher or who was a teacher for the other dolls.  It was in my blood!  My parents could hear me reading out loud to my dolls when I was upstairs in my room, and they were downstairs in the kitchen.  I was meant to be a teacher!
Then I entered my freshman year of college, and I had a professor who told me that my analysis of all of the literature we read in class was wrong because I did not agree with his point of view.  I dropped my major of English teaching, and I graduated with an Associates Degree with an emphasis in Humanities.  I didn't know what I wanted to do any more.  I knew that if I had to be like that professor and tell my students they were wrong because they didn't agree with me, then I did not want to teach.
Fortunately, I went on to a four year university afterwards, and I revisited my teachers from junior high and high school, and they helped to remind me of the reasons why I wanted to teach in the first place.  I also served a full-time mission for the LDS church, and I remembered how great it was to help other people ask questions and find the answers to their questions.  After my mission I returned home and I graduated with a degree in English teaching and a minor in Spanish teaching.
Since then, I have taught for 13 years.  Somedays it feels like it has only been one year and other days it feels like it has been 30.  I joke with my colleagues that I need to retire, and there really are some days/weeks when I think that I should.  You see, when they prepare you to teach, they don't really prepare you to teach.  Sure, they teach you the various strategies you need to know, and they warn you about how it will be tough, but you really don't know how tough it is until you're actually teaching in your own classroom.  They say that teachers wear many hats, and the more I teach, the more I know how true this is.  One day, I am a teacher, explaining the essential elements of the core curriculum for language arts; another day, I am a counselor who listens or reads about all of the problems that are happening at home and with boyfriends and girlfriends; on yet another day, I may be a second mom to that student who just didn't have time to eat in the morning, and he/she needs something to keep them going through the day.  So, this blog is going to be dedicated to all of those different hats that teachers wear throughout our careers.  I know I haven't been teaching long, but I know enough about teaching that I feel I can write about it, and I am finally going to follow my teachers' advice and write about what I know.