FLASHBACK to Spring 2012
The teacher is 20 years old. She is sitting in the nook of a tree and its branches. There are 3 books next to her (Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Flannery O’Connor’s complete collection of short stories). She has a pen in her hand and a Moleskine on her lap. Her phone buzzes once, and she scans the email she has received and immediately dials a number. The teacher: Dan, what the hell? What does it mean you can’t lift my advisor hold? You’re my damn advisor….. well, I know. Yeah, I know, but I don’t know, I’m just not ready. Do you really need me to declare a major now?” A male is heard speaking indistinctly on the phone. You can tell he’s lecturing her, but in a friendly tone. She laughs a couple times as he gets a little louder, and then sighs dramatically before she speaks again. The teacher: Look, I wish you could see me right now because I’m proving you right. Yes, I’m a disgusting hipster filth English major and I know it. I mean, I’m sitting here with three books, wearing goodwill flannel and writing crap poetry. I’m a damn cliché. [she laughs but then her tone grows more serious.] Dan, it’s just… what do you do with an English degree anyway? I mean, obviously you can teach, but… like, everyone in my family teaches. I just didn’t think I’d be that person. FLASHFORWARD to Fall 2014. The teacher is sitting in Sarah Jacob’s office. Her face is red from walking in tights across town and campus. She is breathing deeply to try and hide her uneasiness as she sits down for an interview with Sarah and Dr. Mullins, the man who her friend has spoken of with reverence for 2 years. He smiles at her, leans in and asks a question. The teacher: Now, Daria, why do you want to be a teacher? She breathes in and gathers all the memories from the years. Mrs. Humboldt, her kindergarten teacher who she wanted to grow up to be. The summers she spent reading instead of running around outside or jumping in pools with other kids her age. The days she spent tutoring her older sister when her teachers had given up on her because they saw an I.E.P. instead of a student. Mr. Gilpin and Mrs. Jetton, the high school teachers who had turned her love for reading into a love for literature. Then, she remembered the day in the Grove when she’d hesitantly accepted her fate. The teacher: I guess I always knew I was going to be a teacher. It was a romantic idea at first, one that came to me as a child when I revered my teachers, but then it grew into more of a reality as I saw public schools fail my sister. I don’t know, for a while, I thought, no, I don’t want this. I fought it because everyone in my family had done this, become a teacher, that is. But I remember the day I declared my major and realized this is what I was going to do. For me, this program isn’t two years. It’s what I want to do. |