This last month saw a two quiet but momentous things in the life of this soft-spoken teacher and writer. Two weeks ago I finished my first year of teaching, with the requisite tearful-and-joyful graduation ceremony at the Woolman Semester. I’ve learned a lot this year – being an educator is funny like that, you discover the learning is a two way street. I suspect my second year will be a hugely different but still wild ride.
And, in late April, the first book to have my name on it was published. Granted, it has the name of many people on it – Spirit Rising is an anthology with 10 editors and 200+ contributors. (But due to an alphabetical advantage, the book was catalogued under my name in the Library of Congress. I’m not gloating, though. Really.)
It’s interesting that I was hugely congratulated for the book, but not for completing my inaugural year of teaching. That speaks to something I’ve been trying to parse out and express on this blog, so far without success: I suspect myself of having a deep and subtle inferiority complex about being a teacher. I don’t know where I picked this complex up. (Perhaps college. I picked up a lot of unconscious junk there.)
I think it’s important to be honest about this complex, though, because I suspect I might not be alone in it. And I think it is probably related to how teaching is generally regarded by American society - and the fact no one congratulated me. There’s that cliché adage: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” There’s also that slimy fact that teachers are underpaid basically everywhere. And there’s the total lack of glamour – this sense that working in American schools can be like manning the trenches in a noble but ugly war. (Perhaps all this actually indicates how Americans really feel about our education system, not the vocation of teaching, but in my experience there’s rarely a distinction made.)
This all contradicts what I know experientially, rationally, and emotionally: that good teachers are alchemists. Healers. Liberators. Midwives to nascent humanity. I know this from the golden moments I’ve had this year – and a few of the crappy ones - but more imporantly from the many important teachers I’ve had in my own life. Teaching transforms because learning transforms, because accompaniment transforms. Teachers have one of the most important jobs in the world.
I teach for the same reasons I write books: both nourish. And I believe deep in the fiber of my being that when humans are nourished, our capacity for goodness, justice, creativity and love is immense. I did not set out to be a teacher and am often surprised to find myself on this path, but I also know that teaching makes total sense for this reincarnated activist, fancy intellectual, shy writer, and almost-seminarian.
So please congratulate me for being a teacher. I will appreciate the reminder.
