What about that road not taken?

***Please note:  This is my opinion, not fact.  :)

I was watching A&E's "Teach:  Tony Danza" and something he said at the very beginning of the show made me think, "What about that road not taken?"  I'd safely say that there are two types of people in the world when it comes to listening to teachers talk:  1) Those who would rather not, and 2) Those who actually have a fascination with education.  The second group are the minority.  So, if you are in the majority, this post will not interest you.  Stop reading now.   Honestly, I fall in the first group more than you'd think.  :)

Each school year when the new year starts, I think several of the same thoughts.  Now, how many years is this?  I wonder what are my students from each year are up to now?   Why does each year feel like the first year? How will this school year end?  I also remember that first year.............

My first year was almost the last year.  I couldn't think of a harder existence than that defining year.  I couldn't have spent more time or money trying to get  it figured out.  I had an interview at an inner city school near Erlanger just before my wedding.  I hadn't even walked across the stage to get my diploma yet.  I got a call just before the we left for our honeymoon offering me the job.  It was kindergarten.  I told the principal I preferred 3rd grade.  She hesistated and offered me 3rd grade.  Obviously, she knew my long blonde curls, satin bow and sailor dress were better suited for kindergarten in the inner city. However, I was convinced my life would be over if I didn't teach 3rd grade. 

Because I had attended UTC, the area didn't seem that rough to me.  Boy, was I wrong!  It was a very rough area of Chattanooga and I didn't find that out until I decided to offer pick up and drop off service to my parents who couldn't get to the school for conferences.  Oh?  There's a rule that you don't drive parents/students home without another school personnel in the car with you?  How come, as a first year teacher, I didn't find out about rules until I broke one? 

In addition to all the rules and norms I was clueless about, there was the race factor.  For the first time ever, I was in the minority.  It was so interesting.  I didn't know that I was in the minority until I stood in front of my class on the first day of school.  Before standing in front of my class, I spent hours cleaning and decorating the room.  Little did I know, I should have spent hours studying the neighborhoods, the students' stories, the data in the perm records, and the curriculum.  I prepared my classroom with help from family and friends blinded by what I wanted to see and not what I was seeing. 

This school was the oldest, most dilapidated building Hamilton County had to offer.  Wow.  But, I couldn't see anything bad about it because I just wanted my own classroom and students.  I decorated the room and it still looked shabby.  It was part of an old auditorium and located all the way across the school from my grade level.  I didn't even know I had a grade level until one of the students said, "I wish I was in Miss Williams' class because she's black like me."   That comment prompted another student to say, "Are you light skinned or white?"  Then another student said, "On Lesson Line where you record our homework, at the beginning Peyton Manning says something about stay in school and work hard.  Are you kin to Peyton Manning?  He's white too."  The room had a broken air conditioner that hung on to the window just by a wing and a prayer.  It was three flights of steps to get to my room which made fire drills a free for all regarding behavior and was across from a set of bathrooms that had a trickle for running water.  Rats got into the snacks I provided for the students each night.  That taught me that I had to bring things in plastic, sealed containers. 

I can remember getting so frustrated because no matter what idea I had (putting pencil sharpeners at each group so they'd stop being obssessed with pencil sharpening, allowing them to earn their seat choices in the classroom to increase attention levels, mentoring kids with successful minority adults in the community, going to homes for conferences because of "house arrest" parents...), it was still my first year and I felt like nothing more than a lead student left to take names. 

The road was taken, but almost took a different direction very quickly.  I could not resort to what I saw others doing who were surviving the inner city teaching gig.  I had made a pact of "refusals" to myself--things I wouldn't do because of my ethical committment to kids, not just the profession.  I refused to yell at or belittle children.  I felt that if I respected them and provided them with things they were interested in, gave them everything they needed to do what I was asking and was there for support than they shouldn't be a disruption.  I did have to implement consequences, however.  I had no educational training on children of poverty, drug environments, etc.  I refused to use textbooks with kids who couldn't read.  I wanted to use their curiosities of things that interested them to encourage a desire in them to learn the sight words and sounds they'd need to read about their interests.  I refused to ignore that their basic needs weren't met.  I wanted to make sure that even if they were eating my lunch for their breakfast, that they weren't not learning because they were hungry.  I refused to worry about curriculum until I met their basic needs.  My beginning salary paychecks went to furnishing my classroom with chapter books that we could use to do units, supplies that the children needed (okay, the monogrammed LLBean bookbags I gave some who didn't have bookbags was an over the top gesture) and anything else I thought was a barrier that could be removed with money. 

One day during lunch, I decided this was not for me.  I felt that I couldn't finish this rough journey because I couldn't fix everything within the 180 days I had.  I told the Assistant Principal that I felt like quitting.  I told him this wasn't at all like student teaching, it wasn't like school when I was a student, and it wasn't something I could do with the ease I was used to.  He looked at me and said a few things to me that helped me know that I had to not fight this struggle to make things easier for me, but to fight the fight to make things easier for the students.  He said, "This might not be the placement for you at this time in your career, but that doesn't mean you need to give up on education."  He matched me up with a mentor teacher who said, "Take that bow out, lose the teacher clothes and let them know you are the boss of that room."   Well, I decided that bossing kids wasn't what I wanted to do.  I wanted to look at standards and students' interest and create work for them that they were excited about.  I decided I wasn't in a school where that was the way things were done.  So, at the end of that first year, I applied for and trained to teach at a magnet school for fine arts, where the administration felt agreed that that's where "people like me belonged."  They further remarked that the magnet school was for, "Teachers who don't want to use textbooks, teachers who want to have socratic circles at the end of the day with students,............."Sounded like heaven to me! 

Thirteen years later............I wonder what if I had not taken this road?  Would I have a degree in education, but be....?.....