I've always been a fan of creative writing. I was the kid who delighted at the idea of writing anything other than an essay. I loved the way that we could spill our brains onto the paper without confines. If we wanted to splash some color outside the lines, we can. But, as I've gone through all of my schooling, I've seen some people balk at the idea of no rules. I've seen people fall into the comfort of a structured essay like they would a fraying blanket.

While this has been a mystery to me, I understand the need for structure. Sometimes it can be good thing. I know that I've had my moments where someone says write and I say, what do you want me to write. They say anything. I say what? A part of that is social conditioning, but a part of that is wiring.

Though I may not be wired that way, I have to acknowledge the people that are. As a teacher, I could terrify someone with the thought of creative writing while simultaneously bore someone to tears at the prospect of yet another essay. So what's the balance?

Recently I've been doing a project (a unit on Ender's Game) that requires reading strategies and group activities (both large and small). I want to integrate blogging, videos, and podcasts. I want to talk about war and right and wrong and politics. But what if I have students who don't like speaking? Or being on film? Or writing a creative piece from a different point of view?

The way I solved this little issue was to give alternate assignments. I know that it creates more work for me, but it also lets me utilize this project as a resource. If they don't want to write a creative piece from a different POV, those students can use the alternate project of writing an essay on the differences in character and how that shaped the story. If another person besides the main character had been the commander in charge, would the same out come have occurred? Why? What are the fundamental differences that define the characters? While this is inherently covered in a creative writing piece, an essay can accomplish the same thing through explanation.

I want all of my students to feel comfortable so they can learn the way they need to. It may be a little more work for me, but I'm not the important one here am I?

I had this terrifying moment today of, "I don't want to be a role model." It's such a concerning term. To think that someone will look at you as an ideal of... something. In this case, I have issues with being an ideal adult.

I don't have my life anywhere close to being together. I think that we forget that adults are just making it up as they go along. I know I am. I recently received my horizontal ID in the mail and I still don't feel adultish. I'm having problems adulting.

So how am I supposed to walk into a classroom and be like, "Hello children I am an adult follow my adulting examples!"

Seriously?

I question my decisions about my lunch, and you want me to be a role model? What?

The question of the year is this: How do I pretend I am a proper adult?

Answer: You don't.

Pretending to be all knowing is one of the biggest mistakes a teacher can make. Showing humanity is one of the main conclusions I've come to about connection and relationship.

Whenever I tell people I'm going to be a teacher, I get one of two responses. Oh! I love English. Or Oh, I hated my English teacher. It's amazing the perceptions that people carry with them far after high school is over. I always ask why they hated or loved a certain teacher, and it didn't come from pretending to be all knowing with this fancy degree.

The teachers that were the most loved were those who cared. They were the teachers who enjoyed teaching their subject, even when they knew the students didn't like it so much. They were the ones who had strange quirks. Who drank coffee and admitted mornings weren't meant for them. They were the teachers who admitted their faults but tried to get beyond them. They were the teachers who made class interesting, who weren't jerks, who went to football games, who nerded out, who didn't hate on the trouble makers, who tried to teach them something by talking to them, not at them.

All of these things are easier said than done. I realize that not all of my students will leave my class liking me. But I do know that they're never going to learn if I keep pretending that I'm Miss perfect.

Recently I had the opportunity to talk with teachers and principals from charter, alternative, and private schools, and to be honest, I'm sold.

I think one of my biggest fears as a teacher, and more importantly as a person, is to end up stuck in middle class suburbia. Now, don't get me wrong. Do middle class suburbia kids need good teachers, yes. Is that something that I would enjoy doing? Less so. I have always wanted adventure. I grew up in middle class suburbia and it's not my particular idea of adventure, especially when it comes to teaching. I want to travel to a different country and teach at an American School. I want to go to a big city and teach inner city. I want to see all different walks of life, and oddly enough, the one that I never considered was the lives of the well off.

I want to clarify that going to a private school doesn't make you rich. A lot of charter schools and private schools run off of scholarship or lottery. But, to be honest, my mom and I weren't exactly middle class when I was a kid. We got by well enough and I never went hungry, but we did happen to live in a place where we needed an exterminator once a month and neither of us EVER went out at night. It wasn't until I was reunited with my dad that things started to get better for us fiscally.

Thus, private school was always an enigma.

After talking to said teachers and principals from these different types of schools, I've been successfully enticed. I think that their curriculum is sometimes more successful because they think outside the box. Often times there is more flexibility within the classroom, or they have a proven method that prepares their 7th graders to successfully read Twelfth Night with a high capacity for comprehension (true story). I think that it's a beautiful way to run a school.

Do I have experience in these schools? Goodness no, but you know what? I'm willing to try it and see what happens.

I've been at a loss of what to write lately. I've been over worked and overwhelmed. I keep trying to think on if high school was this bad, and you know what? It was in its own way. I remember being overwhelmed by emotions and self doubt. I remember feeling like each day was a battle that would never end.

So what's so different now? I pay bills and work a job and do more homework, but I'm also more sure of myself, more confident in who I am, and I feel attractive.

Being a teenager is hard. Sometimes I want to look back and shake myself or maybe imbue my younger self with just a sliver of my current confidence in who I am. I want to tell her that she just needs to brush her hair and stop wearing the same damn hoodie every day and she'll be okay. That she's beautiful.

I think as adults we miss the subtle signs that might seem obvious to a teenager. Yes, they are dramatic, but at the time it's not drama at all, it's very real. So why would I want, especially as a teacher, to look down on them for their problems because they aren't mine? It's ridiculous.

As a teacher, I don't want to be that all knowing adult that will tell them, "This will pass," or "Right now it seems like its the end of the world, but its not."

I find it demeaning to teens who are just trying to get through the best they can. Being overwhelmed isn't a bad thing.

I recently went to an Easter christian church service with my mother. I haven't been to church since I left for college because organized religion terrifies me and tends to rub me the wrong way. Now, as a disclaimer, I'm not an atheist nor am I insulting Christianity, I merely want to touch on it's relevance to my life.

Since I was 18 (as an experiment), I've asked a total of 16 men (including a long term boyfriend) to show me how to punch someone properly and so far I've gotten the same response.

A smile.

Out of 16 men, none of them have actually shown me how to throw a punch without hurting myself. A few have hesitantly told me I need to turn my wrist as I punch. One told me, briefly, that I should hit with a certain part of my hand so I injure them more than myself. I've picked up bits and pieces about how to punch someone properly and have constructed a basic understanding of how to do this.

Here's an info-graphic of how to throw a manly punch, because apparently only men can learn how to punch properly according to Google images.

The follow up question is usually this (if there is even a question of why I want to learn this particular skill): Why do you want to learn how to punch someone?

Why not? I want to live in New York and San Francisco. I am a 115 lb woman and I don't exactly have bulging muscles. The answer should be obvious. I shouldn't need someone to protect me if a person could just show me how to hit someone hard enough that they might think twice about their intentions.

Yet, no one will teach me. Many of them laugh it off. I actually got patted on the head once. I was told that if anyone tried to hurt me, they would take care of it. I was told that I should never have to end up in a situation where I will need to know how to punch if I'm smart.

This made me angry.

I shouldn't have to take self defense classes to live alone. I shouldn't have to be afraid to walk through safe-as-flowers Fort Collins at night after work.

I shouldn't have my motives for wanting to know how to defend myself questioned. I know that violence isn't what I should jump to, but it's often what women are forced into. Many of my male coworkers and I goof off and I don't often have the upper hand.

How does this translate into the classroom? I remember getting my bra snapped in 8th grade. I remember my bra being unhooked in high school. I remember getting jostled frequently. I remember seeing girls pushed up against lockers in the hallway by boys twice their size. I remember the cat calls (though not aimed at me particularly) and the laughing and the blatant sexual innuendos. I remember the difference in treatment depending on the subject.

As a teacher, I want to keep that kind of behavior out of my classroom. I want to let the girls in my classroom know that they are safe. I want girls and boys to know that they are free to learn and experiment with all the knowledge they want. I want them to feel unafraid of the things they find interesting because society has told us that only girls can do certain things and only boys can do certain things. I think it's important to never use the phrase "boys will be boys" in my classroom. I want all of my students held accountable for their decisions, because that is true equality.

I never pictured myself as an intimidating person. I'd always thought of myself as very approachable and fairly friendly. As a student in high school myself, I was liked fairly well, but I don't think I was ever disliked. I just kept to myself.

I never realized how intimidating I might be to people younger than me until I stepped into a classroom. Some treated me as a wall flower, some as a challenge, and some as a monster to be avoided at all cost.

I'd never pictured myself as a potential fire breathing dragon up until that point.

When I was a kid, I never saw teachers as scary. Being an only child up until the age of 13 meant that the people that I hung out with as a kid were all adults. I had no true fear of authority, so I couldn't understand why other kids were so afraid to ask for help. I became the knight that could confront the fire breathing dragon while my fellow classmates cowered in their huts.

I never thought of myself as one of these mysterious creatures. I'm not saying that all kids have a fear of authority, or even a fear of asking for help. I have just had to accept that there are some kids who only see me as a dragon, and not as a person that can help them. I am not the queen in my classroom to most of my kids. To most of my kids I am the dragon crouching atop my desk waiting for the unread traveler to be caught in my jaws of doom.

Relationships with kids are so much more than a classroom management tactic. Relationships, and paying attention to the way your are viewed as a teacher, can take you from a dragon, to a queen, and that makes all the difference.