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Teaching is about more than curriculum and lesson planning. It’s about more than tests and grades. It’s about helping kids discover themselves and the world around them. The work of a teacher, at its core, is to model and reflect back what it means to live. Teaching, as human work, is to show the beauty and complexity of the human experience in our society.
Part of being a strong teacher is encouraging kids to explore, inspiring them to dream big, and modeling for them what it looks like to bring passion to learning and experiencing the world. But pursuing dreams and passions requires time and space, and teaching leaves me barely any room to breathe. With my days long and rigid, this profession hasn’t given me the space to be a balanced, whole human. Teaching has consumed me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching and I do not believe teachers should have to leave the classroom to feel whole. Closing in on a decade into classroom teaching, some of my dreams from childhood are calling back to me and I’m choosing to lean into them, rather than ignoring them for a profession I’ve settled into.
Keep Dreaming
Becoming a teacher was the first dream I had as a kid. I had a preschool teacher who was magic and I wanted to be just like her. Like all kids, I was constantly asked the question Michelle Obama loathes: What do you want to be when you grow up? And even though I eventually became a teacher, my answer morphed over time. Teaching wasn’t my only dream.
At 10 years old, my world opened up. I had my first job. I made $100 bringing to life the legacy of Coleman A. Young in a sold out stage play in my hometown of Detroit. This gave me a taste of what it felt like to be a professional actor, or in my mind, a Disney Channel star. Over the next few years, I performed in community and school productions, and I fell in love with making magic in the theater.
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