What do you want to be when you grow up?

Jan 03, 2008 - 01:25 AM PST

It had to be second grade when I first knew, I was aspiring to be a teacher. The previous year I had the best teacher I had ever encountered, out of my 2 years of schooling, Mrs. Scudder. The way she taught me “the dog can run,” “see the dog run fast,” must have been one of those inspiring moments in my life. Each year on my birthday, since I was old enough to remember, my mother will bring out a bin full of my “work” since forever ago. We sit down, as she pulls out paintings, most look abstract, or “books” that I have written, as she says, “See! I knew you were always talented!” I think moms are genuinely programmed to say that. Well that’s beside the point; we came across a booklet from second grade. Now when a teacher asks her student what they want to be when they grow up most of their responses end up being an astronaut, doctor, firefighter, or an actor. Not this second grader! In that booklet under “What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up,” I wrote a teacher.
Between second grade and eighth grade, my imagination took me to a classroom. Not to some far away castle or a housemaid, as elementary students usually go when they imagine themselves somewhere else. Thank God my mother brought two more children into the world, and they became my students. My mother’s friend had been a teacher and gave her a bunch of her old books, ranging from Math to Science, and my favorite English. My father bought me two desks. With this help, my parent’s had created a teaching machine. During the summer, when my younger brother and sister didn’t have class, they did with me. Most of the time we argued, but I enjoyed at least thinking I had taught them something. My sister knew sixth grade level math by the time she was in third grade, because I had to play teacher.
By Middle School, I had begun creating a series of books, most inspired by The Babysitters Club. I made booklets and then painted the cover, with a set of acrylic paints I received for Christmas in sixth grade, this was a dangerous move on my parent’s part. My mother loved reading the books, which turned out to be 5 pages of me rambling on about a pre-teen, a boy she liked and how her parents wouldn’t let her see him…story of my life. After passing this book creating stage, the acrylic paints got to me. It was seventh grade when I took my first painting class I had begged my mom to pay for because I knew I was going to be an Art teacher. All that had changed once eighth grade came around and Mrs. McLaine had introduced the Great Wars, the Holocaust and the Great Depression to me. No longer had it been writing, or painting for me, it was History I wanted to teach. For each unit we did in that History class, Mrs. McLaine would have us role play, I was so interested in learning about the rule of Hitler and how President Hoover put this country to shits in the 1930s. Unfortunately, when I had hit High School I had the WORST History teacher ever. I was no longer inspired and drifted away from history.
Remember those teenage hormone problems you went through? Well mine took me in the wrong direction in High School. I became angry at everything. When I went to get help, my counselor suggest a journal to let my problems out. After my first real pay check from a crappy minimum wage job, I decided to buy one of these journals and ramble on about “Oh My God, I can’t believe Susie is dating Johnny now!! I hate her!” Although most entries pointless, the more I wrote the more my anger and depression had subsided. Writing became an outlet. I felt free within my pages to say whatever I felt like saying without being judged by anyone.
It was time to look into colleges by eleventh grade, I looked at the ones with acceptable education programs; SUNY Cortland happened to be one of them. Although I had knew I still wanted to be a teacher, ever since second grade, I wasn’t sure which subject to concentrate on. It was my eleventh grade English teacher, Ms. Davis that made the decision a lot easier. Had it not been for Holden Caulfield, Scout and Lennie (Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men), I probably wouldn’t be an Adolescence English major here at SUNY Cortland. The way Ms. Davis brought each character to life in the books she had taught, inspired me to want to teach literature just as she did. I sometimes compared myself to Salinger’s character Holden, writing a journal just like the journal to his life. If I could wrap my self so into a book, I knew it was possible for anyone to do. I wanted to have students that could read a piece of literature, and relate to characters or become one with the book. So when I had finally applied to Cortland, I declared my major as English.
My sophomore year at SUNY Cortland, placed me back to sixth grade when I had been creating those series of books, except for this time, there wasn’t a painted cover and I had typed pages upon pages on my computer. Professor Stearns, my Adolescent Literature professor, had given us an assignment to write a short story. All the books that she had as preferred reading kept me reading at least two books a week. Each of which motivated my writing techniques for the short story assignment. This short story assignment turned into what is now a novel that I am in the midst of working on. However, I knew it wouldn’t be possible to finish nor come close to having edited this novel without taking any previous writing classes. Rambling in an angry teenage journal wasn’t enough to learn how to create a young adult fiction piece. I then claimed a minor in Professional Writing, in hopes that by end of my college career I will have finished a novel. Whether it was my first, eighth or eleventh grade teacher, I hope to carry a piece of each of them with me as I start my years as a teacher. Maybe some day a student of mine will be writing a writers portrait, and explain how I, their English teacher inspired them to teach literature as well.