When I was in college, I read Stephen King's book On Writing, and it changed my life. I had just gotten into writing for my college newspaper, and reading this manifesto on the ways to go about writing, when to consider yourself an author, and generally analyzing the whole process of sitting down and pouring a little bit of yourself onto the page really stuck with me. After I read his book, I committed myself to the craft and really took off as a writer. I started to make money, and not just pocket change, by selling stories and articles whenever I could. I really felt like I was on my way to being the next Tom Sorenson, Joe Posnanski, or Jeff Pearlman.
Well folks, obviously things didn't end up like I intended. I got out of college with my sparkling diploma, and found that newspapers weren't hiring. Magazines weren't either. And making money freelance is hard to do, so sometimes you are eating steak and sometimes you are on the all ramen, all the time diet. I tried my hand at substitute teaching and really fell in love with it, I felt like I could be in a classroom for the rest of my life and be 100% happy with it.
About 6 months ago my journey to become a teacher started. I registered as a lateral entry teacher, signed up for the Praxis exams, and headed off on my way. As soon as my Praxis scores came through, I started applying for jobs. The first one I applied for gave me an interview, and I got offered a position at South Iredell High School the first week of July.
I just wrapped up my third week of teaching full time, and it has been a roller coaster ride. Every day is an adventure. I never know how my kids will react to what I have planned, if my lecture will generate an awesome discussion that goes right up to the bell, or if I will get nothing but dead eyes and vacant stares, and have to scramble to get through the whole period without resorting to the dreaded "find something productive to do" method. But in the midst of dealing with 60 rowdy 16 year olds on a daily basis, I had a moment that literally changed my life.
My second week of class I did a poetry analysis class period, to get my kids used to how I teach and figure out if my method was going to work with these students. I chose three poems that I am very familiar with and love: "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost, "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley, and "Ozymandias" by Percy Blythe Shelley. I know these three poems backwards and forwards, I have them memorized and can talk about them all day if somebody will sit there and listen for that long a time period. I had the students talk about these poems with me, figure out the themes and similarities, and at the end of the period gave them homework where they needed to tie these three works together in some way. I just wanted to know if the kids had held onto some of what I had been saying for 90 minutes, to see if I was effective.
As class was ending, a young man walked by me and said "That was the first time in my life that poetry was interesting. Thanks for that Mr. A." I am not sure who was more shocked, me or him. I had hoped that my lesson would be effective, that the kids would have a little more insight into literature than they had before. I chalked it up as hyperbole, that he was saying something he maybe didn't mean, to impress me or something.
The moment that made me fall in love teaching, that almost made me cry, happened the next day. I was in my classroom during my lunch hour, when I get some work done and maybe 20 students sit in my room for social time. I sat back in my chair for a second to take my mind off of the papers I was grading, when a unfamiliar face started talking to me. This girl asks me, "Mr. Alexander, when I have you next month are we going to do the poetry thing. My friend said it was really cool, and I don't want to miss out on it." I am not sure how I held it together long enough to get to the faculty bathroom. Never in my life did I think that I would be a teacher. And here I sat in a classroom with my name on the door, having kids asking me if I could make sure to do the really cool activity that students had done the day before. The moment, when I realized I had reached my students, and taught them something that had them talking to their friends about it, hit me like a freight train. I knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, that I will teach for the rest of my working life. I had heard horror stories about first year teachers, and here I was being asked my a student to make sure I repeated my lecture on poetry of all things, because she didn't want to miss out on it. If that student only knew how much her question made me feel, how knowing that I gave my kids a lesson that they felt was good enough to talk with their friends about validated all of the work that went into that 90 minute lesson. Until that point, I hadn't seen the kids really connect with what I said. At that moment, it hit me that I can really make a difference with what I am doing.
I am about to start my fourth week of teaching this Monday. I've got lessons to plan, papers to grade, a sports team to help coach, and find some time to fit my personal life into all of that. But it is those moments when kids let you know that what you are doing is important, is meaningful, that what I am doing every day is having an impact, is what get's me through some of those long days.
I love what I do.
I do not have to go to work every morning. I get to.
Nothing could make me happier.
