If I Was Wearing Boots, I’d Be Pulling on the Straps

Dude.  I have got to GET IT TOGETHER.  Seriously, I am outraged and will continue to be outraged about the mass firing of teachers, however, crying in the shower is not helping.  I am determined to think of something to do, some way to use my voice, use OUR VOICES that feels more productive than blogging from my overstuffed chair with the cat on my lap.

I’ve decided that until genius strikes me (and it will…it HAS to), I am going to reflect on why I got into this whole teaching business anyway.  I mean, I landed my first teaching job because I possess these qualities…(get ready for some horn tooting) I’m smart, dedicated, resourceful and ready to learn more to improve upon what I do in the classroom on a daily basis.  I’m humble enough to admit when I’m wrong (contrary to popular belief) yet don’t give up when things get difficult.   (Which is precisely why I have to get my you-know-what together.)  But I’m also driven to push myself and my students to find success when it seems to be elusive.  I have good intentions and feel like I’ve received the “call to teach” but I never rely on those two things alone…teaching is so much more than that. 


I love teaching.  I love (most) teachers.  I loved my friends….year after year, I loved them, even when the outlook didn’t look so fabulous in September. I loved feeling like I could change something, improve someone’s future or perspective, DO SOMETHING that made a difference.  Being in the classroom felt like, and still seems to me, the most powerful place to be in the educational system.  I know we don’t have a lot of power down here at the bottom, but I’d rather be here with the kids actually TRYING than up at the top (which should definitely be the bottom) (I want to insert an obvious “because they’re acting like a bunch of bottoms aka asses joke here) just pontificating and finger pointing and justifying my place.  


My second year of teaching (which HALLELUJAH was better than my first which sometimes I act like never happened) I fell in love with my friends.  In love.  I did everything for my classroom…nights, weekends, you name it and I was thinking of something, drawing something, creating something for my friends.  For my classroom.  My kingdom.  The place where I had a voice that mattered.  


Like a billion years later (it’s amazing how fast being in education will age you), one of my former students came back to visit and played a rap that he had written and dedicated to me for helping him believe in himself.  (Grab a tissue here if you need to…I think we could all use a good cry lately.)  And right now, I think I have to call on that moment to believe in MYSELF again and the voice we all have.  (Granted, I have to find my funny voice again, because it seems to have gone missing…like my waistline and fashionability – people, maternity clothes blow.  End of story.)  


Mrs. Mimi promises to get her groove back.  I can be funny, be a voice AND be HUGELY PISSED about this entire situation if I keep in mind why I got into teaching in the first place and why I belong here.