The Goal

I am trying to become something.

In the end, that is the purpose of my education - the purpose of all education, I would hope! I haven't been lugging a 40 lb backpack around campus for my health. I haven't squirmed through lectures - both mind-numbing and mind-blowing - for the fun of it. I haven't worked, laughed, cried, screamed, failed, slept, sprinted, stretched, succeeded just to get the applause of a few aged professors.

I have done it because I wanted to learn how to be who I wanted to be.

Because I wanted to be a teacher.

But let me tell you something: becoming a teacher is hard. And in some ways, that's a terrific thing. It is the result of anxious parents and mindful citizens, who push for legislation like No Child Left Behind as an attempt to do right by our country's youth, to require high standards for their educators. But in other ways, it's a frustratingly bureaucratic thing: a system of legal hoops and tricks that serve only to create the appearance of excellence, without any thought to the actual needs of the students.

Regardless, teacher education is a drawn-out and complicated process. Not enough people appreciate the time, energy, research, and innovation that go into creating lesson plans and assessments. Similarly, not enough people recognize the difficulty of learning these skills, of training your brain to think from behind the teacher's desk for once.

Straddling the chasm that separates the worlds of "student" and "teacher" is extremely uncomfortable. Student teachers are being put on the spot, testing their new skills in front of a huge and highly critical audience. They are under the scrutiny of professors, colleagues, students, parents, administrators, and legislators. And they aren't getting paid for it.

So why are they doing it? Why am I doing it?

Because I want to be a teacher.

And I understand that there is a huge difference between passing the requirements for certification and actually being a great teacher. The first is more annoying, but the second is much more difficult. It takes time. It takes effort. And it takes failing over and over again until I get it right.

That's why I've created this blog. Sure, it will be interesting to document my experiences, to give all of you an insight into exactly what it takes to become a teacher; and I hope you learn from that. But more importantly, I want to learn from this. I want to take the opportunity to develop my philosophies on pedagogical theory; I want to explore real-life stories, to see what makes a teacher great or awful; and I want to reflect on my own teaching experiences - as they come - so that I can get into the habit of facing my failures head-on and setting them straight.

I'm not going to wait until I get my first teaching job. I'm not going to wait until I begin my student teaching. The time is now. I'm going to figure out exactly what it takes to teach a teenager.