As a result of my Fulbright and my desire to move to Minneapolis, I was in a bit of bind: what would I do for Fall 2015 in terms of work? I have always worked in schools, which rarely hire people for 1/2 of a school year. I explored job options, but my backup plan was to be a substitute teacher. As much as I dreaded the thought, I knew it would be ideal if made connections with people in schools. Working at Starbucks for 6 months seemed mildly amusing, but not so useful moving forward.
Thankfully, Jen introduced me to Hannah and Hannah introduced me to Cynthia and Cynthia knew her colleague Allison was going on maternity leave. That led to 12 weeks as a Level 3 ESL teacher. During that time, the Level 2 teacher quit and I filled in for the remainder of the semester, which ended today.
It was an ideal subbing situation, so I can't complain. I was able to start the year with one group of students and 12 weeks later I moved down the hall and worked with many kids I already knew. Everyone was kind to me and I even got paid to do the first week of teacher PD before the year began.
And yet.
It was hard. I quickly felt how much of my personal identity was wrapped up in my professional identity. No one knew a thing about me and they mostly ignored me and minded their own business. I can't blame them-- it's a huge school and they had more important things to worry about. I went from being a respected leader within the school to "the sub." I didn't have a clue what was happening school-wide and no one was looking for my help in anything beyond my classroom.
For the first few days it was awkward, trying to figure out what elements of the class were up to me and what needed to be done in coordination with Allison, the permanent teacher. However, within a few days she had had her babies and was gone. I went ahead and did my thing. I tried to make do without spending much too much money or time decorating the room, thinking that this would be silly given the circumstances. I quickly realized this made classroom organization and management miserable. I didn't have a place to put anything. I was reminded of my early days of teaching, before I had developed routines for collecting homework, passing out paper, etc. It was a mess. I was also reminded of the beautiful, old classrooms I lived in while teaching in NYC and Boston. The wooden floors and giant windows were amazing, but loud and cold. The luxuriousness of my SLCSE classroom really hit me.
It was bizarre to work in Minnesota, where I was familiar with so many things, and yet completely unfamiliar the world my students lived in. They would mention places I recognized and I'd think to myself "how odd, there's a city named that in Minnesota too." And then I would realize I was in Minnesota. I'd see boys who were clearly "cool" or "tough" wearing Minnesota Twins hats, and it made me laugh. And then I'd remember I was in Minnesota, everyone was wearing Twins hats. More important than this surface-stuff was learning about the lives of kids who grew up so differently than me due to simple accidents of geography, nationality, race, class, etc. They can navigate city buses in a way that would have terrified me at age 16. It never occurs to them to be afraid of North Minneapolis. They know the names of all the housing complexes and which nationalities tend to live where. They've never heard of Oakdale, but according to them, the Mall of America is where it's at.
I listen to how they talk about the future, particularly in relation to college, and I am struck by how different their lives are from mine. It's always been this way in my work in schools, since I grew up very privileged, but students I've worked with generally have not. However, being on my home turf, watching their lives side by side with the memory of my teenage years drives it home even more.
The biggest, and most important realization from these 6 months is that I don't love teaching beginner ESL classes. I find it pretty boring. I want to talk with students about real issues! I like to think I'm a teacher who has the patience and wherewithal to teach students skills necessary for success in school (examples: how to save a Word document, how to staple a paper, how to write down your homework, how to use a folder), but with so many kids with such little school experience, Level 2 felt like teaching elementary school every day. It's just not my gig.
Oh, and I need to learn the history of East Africa. ASAP. A few words in Somali and Oromo would help too.
Thankfully, Jen introduced me to Hannah and Hannah introduced me to Cynthia and Cynthia knew her colleague Allison was going on maternity leave. That led to 12 weeks as a Level 3 ESL teacher. During that time, the Level 2 teacher quit and I filled in for the remainder of the semester, which ended today.
It was an ideal subbing situation, so I can't complain. I was able to start the year with one group of students and 12 weeks later I moved down the hall and worked with many kids I already knew. Everyone was kind to me and I even got paid to do the first week of teacher PD before the year began.
And yet.
It was hard. I quickly felt how much of my personal identity was wrapped up in my professional identity. No one knew a thing about me and they mostly ignored me and minded their own business. I can't blame them-- it's a huge school and they had more important things to worry about. I went from being a respected leader within the school to "the sub." I didn't have a clue what was happening school-wide and no one was looking for my help in anything beyond my classroom.
For the first few days it was awkward, trying to figure out what elements of the class were up to me and what needed to be done in coordination with Allison, the permanent teacher. However, within a few days she had had her babies and was gone. I went ahead and did my thing. I tried to make do without spending much too much money or time decorating the room, thinking that this would be silly given the circumstances. I quickly realized this made classroom organization and management miserable. I didn't have a place to put anything. I was reminded of my early days of teaching, before I had developed routines for collecting homework, passing out paper, etc. It was a mess. I was also reminded of the beautiful, old classrooms I lived in while teaching in NYC and Boston. The wooden floors and giant windows were amazing, but loud and cold. The luxuriousness of my SLCSE classroom really hit me.
It was bizarre to work in Minnesota, where I was familiar with so many things, and yet completely unfamiliar the world my students lived in. They would mention places I recognized and I'd think to myself "how odd, there's a city named that in Minnesota too." And then I would realize I was in Minnesota. I'd see boys who were clearly "cool" or "tough" wearing Minnesota Twins hats, and it made me laugh. And then I'd remember I was in Minnesota, everyone was wearing Twins hats. More important than this surface-stuff was learning about the lives of kids who grew up so differently than me due to simple accidents of geography, nationality, race, class, etc. They can navigate city buses in a way that would have terrified me at age 16. It never occurs to them to be afraid of North Minneapolis. They know the names of all the housing complexes and which nationalities tend to live where. They've never heard of Oakdale, but according to them, the Mall of America is where it's at.
I listen to how they talk about the future, particularly in relation to college, and I am struck by how different their lives are from mine. It's always been this way in my work in schools, since I grew up very privileged, but students I've worked with generally have not. However, being on my home turf, watching their lives side by side with the memory of my teenage years drives it home even more.
The biggest, and most important realization from these 6 months is that I don't love teaching beginner ESL classes. I find it pretty boring. I want to talk with students about real issues! I like to think I'm a teacher who has the patience and wherewithal to teach students skills necessary for success in school (examples: how to save a Word document, how to staple a paper, how to write down your homework, how to use a folder), but with so many kids with such little school experience, Level 2 felt like teaching elementary school every day. It's just not my gig.
Oh, and I need to learn the history of East Africa. ASAP. A few words in Somali and Oromo would help too.