I knew when I entered the teaching program at my university that I wanted to one day get my masters degree. It's no secret that a masters degree can easily bump you 10,000 a year in pay. I love college. I love the pursuit of knowledge and the thrill of learning something new. It is the reason I get A's and B's; I don't have anyone to disappoint but myself.

So when I realized that I have the opportunity to get my masters at NYU on scholarship and fellowship means, I was extremely excited. But here's the problem. How do I live in New York? While it's possible to teach in New York Public Schools and get my masters at the same time, this limits me financially. I would barely make enough for rent, food, and utilities. I would have virtually no money for much more.

It got me thinking. Teaching is one of the lowest paying professions out there that is of value to society. How sad is that?

One of the first things that I was told entering the teaching program was, "I hope you're not in this for the money."

We're told that our job is valuable.

We're told that our job is extremely rewarding.

We're told that no matter how bad it gets, it is always going to be worth it.

We're told we're doing something amazing.

Yet so many teachers leave the profession. So many realize that they can get a less stressful job AND be payed more.

How messed up is that?

I REALLY want to be that crazy English teacher. It's one of my life goals to get consistent looks of exasperation from my students. I don't anger easily and I don't respond to subtle forms of distraction. Actually, quite the opposite, I react to them.

For example, when I did one of my practicums we had a group discussion. The class was split to either side  and I took one half and the actual 8th grade teacher took the other side. I started out with basic questions about plot. Then we moved into the real questions. We were reading Night by Elie Weisel.

"Ms? Why didn't they just leave when the Nazi's moved into town?"
"Yeah, they knew they were dangerous."
"My family and I would have been three shades of gone."

I listened to them all start to agree.

"Well," I started. They all lapsed into silence. "This is assuming that we all know the ending. These people didn't."

A few nodded, some looked confused, and others were set in their convictions.

"Okay. Story time kiddos. I work in a kitchen in a restaurant, and I've learned a lot of fun ways to cook things. I had Lobster explained to me. Does anyone know how to cook a lobster?"

One girl raised her hand, but still looked lost at the comparison I was trying to make.


"Lobsters are cooked alive." A few gasps from some of the group. "In order to not have them freak out, you start them off in cold water and slowly bring the pot to a boil. Even as the water gets hotter and hotter, the lobster won't move because it isn't aware of what is happening. Now, in the terms of the Nazi's and the Jewish, who is the lobster and who is the cook?"

There was mass amounts of dawning comprehension and they were all too stunned to speak. I couldn't decide whether I'd traumatized them with the idea of killing a lobster or the idea of the Nazi's killing the Jews.

Finally, one girl goes, "Poor lobster."

Chaos ensued as people argued about lobster, life and death, and the humane way to kill a lobster/Jew. I was able to steer the conversation into the Jews being slowly cooked. We discussed whether they would be aware that they were being cooked. At what point? We talked about the idea of teachers walking in there, gathering you all up and saying they were taking you somewhere safe. Most of them said they would have gone because they were teachers and they were trusted figures of authority. Some said that they would refuse to go.

Overall, it was an amazing discussion and the other half of the class couldn't figure out why we were having this great debate about lobster. I was later pulled aside by my teacher and asked what we discussed and why it got them in such an uproar.

"I told them how to cook a lobster because many of them couldn't understand why the Jews didn't just leave when the Nazi's rolled into town. They started off with cold water and slowly increased the heat."

She nodded her head. "That's a really good comparison; I never thought about that."

Needless to say, I'm not a teacher that requires a deadly quiet classroom. I am not opposed to the expression of opinion. I have the ability to wade into a sea of chaos and come out the other side without a scratch. I am not of the opinion that kids learn just by being told what is right. I think the best way to learn is to have them come to the conclusion for themselves.


Side Note: I also hate when teachers answer a question with a question. (eg. "Why didn't the Jews just leave when the Nazis rolled into town?" "Why do you think they didn't leave when the Nazis rolled into town?") Don't be that teacher.

I've been asked so many times where I want to work as a teacher. And to be honest, I have no clue. I'm not married, I don't have kids, and I really don't have too many attachments other than my family to Colorado (though they're extremely supportive of exploration).

So where do I want to go?

Recently we've had to draw up an assessment portfolio for one of my education classes. Part of the assignment is to draw up a demographic and some context to your lesson plans based on the school, district, and area that you work in. I chose downtown San Francisco. I've only been there once in my life and kinda fell in love.


Though I've never lived in a city that large in my life I want to live in many different places. I want to backpack Europe. I want to international teach in South America, I want to live in New York, I want to meet all sorts of strange and amazing people. I love the idea of teaching because I get summers and breaks to do these things. If I want to take my summer to the Himalayan Mountains, I can.


But where do I want to start? I'm not entirely sure. Do I want to work in inner city San Francisco? Yes. Is that the best place to make all of my mistakes? I'm not sure. Do I want to international teach? Yes. Should I throw myself into not only a new job but a new country at the same time? I don't know.

I think sometimes in life we have so many opportunities that it seems impossible to make a decision.

I think I'll just have to see when graduation gets closer. I know I want to teach, but the question will always be where.

I didn't always love books. In fact, I didn't read much at all in middle school. I also didn't read too many of the assigned books in high school. Don't get me wrong, I love to read, but assigned reading was what always bit me in the ass. I think coasting through literature is one of the biggest epidemics in schools today.

Usually it occurs when students don't understand a text. I remember having a class called Literary Criticism. It is EXACTLY as horrible as it sounds. We had a book called A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. It was paired with a textbook-ish explanation of criticism and philosophy. Philosophy in itself is vaguely confusing and pair it with large words and complex literature and you have Slacker Soup.

We were supposed to read a few chapters of Joyce's book a week and then they were explained in class. That was the theory. I don't remember much from that class. I remember reading the chapters, giving up halfway through, then coming to class. I remember sitting near the front and I would scribble half a page of notes because I couldn't comprehend what he was trying to explain. I left the class with more questions than I started with. The explanations of the reading only led to more and more confusion. I was vaguely aware of the topic and about half the year I was eating Slacker Soup every day in that class.

I stopped doing the readings because I didn't understand them anyways. I doodled in my notebook and played on my computer and because I was always typing, the professor would continue to drone about Freud and Plato and Joyce. We had two essays and three quizzes that semester. I did okay on the quizzes, but it was the papers I excelled at. I'm not sure how to this day. I did a paper on Nietzsche and I think it had something to do with literature?

Sigmund Freud

I remember that Freud was saying that we constantly repressed the Id, or the child in ourselves ("I want"), and sometimes that emerged and upset society. I think I would have loved to have seen Freud against a feminist.

Regardless, you can see I didn't learn much in that class. Here's the magical part, I passed that class with a B. I'm not sure how that happened because I barely knew the names of these dinosaurs let alone their rambling theories of the human consciousness.

That happens a lot in school. I still have the amazing ability to not read and contribute to the conversation based off of context. Some teachers try to combat this in classrooms by creating impossibly specific tests and activities as if to punish the non-reader. As a teacher I want to do the opposite. I want to encourage kids to read with texts that they find interesting. I want to discuss what they're passionate about, because Slacker Soup does nothing for kids in the long run.

Content storage cannot emerge from difficulty and punishment.

I've told my mother when I was sixteen that I was going to give up everything and become a professional hobo. Clearly, I hadn't quite thought that one through. Being a hobo required a lot more discomfort than I was willing to give when I graduated high school. I just remember her looking over her shoulder as she loaded the dishwasher and gave me "the look." My mother has a distinct look she gives my crazy ideas. It is 12% exasperated, 28% encouraging, 30% sarcastic, and 30 % amused. How she manages it in one facial expression is still a mystery to me.

In the last three years I have gotten the look approximately 5 times. I told her I wanted to be a Peace Corps volunteer, a professional hobo, a teacher, a dog owner, and the most recent one, a doctor. I love exploring the limits of my knowledge and so far I haven't found the boundary yet. I'm a firm believer in the idea that you can do anything if you really try. So in being a teacher and choosing that path over so many other opportunities scares me sometimes.

I am still at a point in my life where I have so many different dreams, and I'm young enough and crazy enough to feel like I can accomplish them all in my lifetime, that I don't know what to do anymore.

I recently read a book by Jose Luis Vilson called This is Not a Test. It was an amazing read that half encouraged me and half terrified me. I've never been one to settle into one school of thought. I love to change my point of view constantly. In being a teacher, it is an adventure that can last a lifetime. Every day is different and every year there is a new class of kids to manage, teach, and try not to strangle. Vilson's book gave me real insight into the classroom, especially as a new teacher. Being a teacher is more than just lesson planning. I'm aware that I won't know exactly what to expect because when I enter a classroom for the first time it will be a brand new


experience for everything that might possibly happen.

I have no idea the kind of kids I'll encounter. I don't know what kind of school I'll end up in, what kind of city I'll end up in, what kind of environment I'll end up in. And that terrifies me. The biggest city I've ever been too is San Francisco and to be honest, I felt completely lost there. I never thought of myself as swimming in a small fishbowl until then.

So when I read Vilson's experiences, from his blog to his classroom, I had to really evaluate the kind of person I wanted to be as a teacher. I don't want to walk in with rose colored glasses, but I also want to have some hope. I think the most important thing I learned from Vilson was to make mistakes. They are going to happen regardless, I might as well do my best to make myself a better teacher and a better person because of it.

I've always struggled with sensitivity during an argument. Don't get me wrong, I like to think I'm very sensitive with people's feelings. But apparently not when I'm in the middle of an argument. I adamantly believe in the three pillars of argument: ethos, pathos, and logos. I rarely express my own experiences or feelings in an argument unless I'm aware of the way that I'm exploiting myself. I very rarely let my own feelings get in the way of my point. I speak of this in an academic sense and a personal sense (most of the time). This is mostly to protect myself. I don't reveal my struggles and troubles to many people because I'm aware of how angry they make me. I'm aware how I dissolve under an argument when I can't keep my own feelings in check.

Recently I was in a class where we were discussing the current education system format. Many of the future teachers talked of grade levels versus intelligence levels. We debated the systematic way that kids get pushed through the system. We talked of the pros and cons of each of the systems proposed along with the current system seeing as we'd all been through it.

Everyone has different experiences in grade school. Many of them are unpleasant. I myself don't like to think about high school because I was often ashamed of what I did to try an fit in and emotions spiraled out of our control. There were fights among friends, fights among enemies, and a lot of isolation despite the fact that we were all going through puberty together. I like to repress that as much as possible because it still has an effect to this day. Blows to my self esteem come from my past. The shield that I draw around myself derives from four years of hell and a few spots of heaven.

So when we discussed a possible system where kids were organized based on intelligence versus grade level it dredged up memories for everyone, both good and bad. Because of this argumentative shield I've developed on the most analytic part of my brain, I argued from a different view. I like playing devil's advocate because it makes me question my own belief system. I get my intellectual high off of trying to see things from a different point of view.

This got me in trouble. I realize that certain ideals don't sit with everyone. I realize that some people are extremely passionate about their point of view. Was I arguing for an intellectually based system of organization in education? No. My personal beliefs revolve around the social maturity of varying grade levels. To mix a 12 year old in with a 18 year old would cause too many social problems on such a massive scale of reorganization. Bullying would increase drastically and so might drop out rates due to stress.

I like to argue for a more systematic approach of pre-requisites. If a student passes varying levels of literature classes they can progress to a higher level. Only when they have passed the necessary levels can they graduate. Many would progress on time, many ahead, and a many behind. Have I thought through all the kinks? God no.

But the basis for our class debate was the issues of intelligence over maturity. I tended to argue intelligence over maturity because I didn't quite agree with either.

This led to tears and personal experiences revealed.

I think I realized one of my flaws. Sometimes, when I am personally invested in an argument, I become too analytical. I use too much of my brain instead of my heart. While I don't know if I can change this in myself just yet, I think it's always good to be aware of your flaws, especially when you plan on walking into a classroom of hormone riddled teens in the near future.

Dear A. Gariner,

You had medium length brown hair and a sickeningly sweet smile. You were enthusiastic. Straight out of college. Hopeful. It was the 2010 to 2011 school year at Horizon High School. You were supposed to teach world history: nicknamed WAFL. You approached our class as a future, flourishing friendship.

You tried so hard to teach us. Initially, you used PowerPoint's like your lessons were a college presentation. We listened patiently at first. You gained some confidence. You learned a few names, but to this day I'm not sure you knew my name.

You separated our classroom of almost 50 in half and mistakenly used the word gangrene in your explanation. We never let it go. We thought, adamantly, that you believed our half of the class a disease. We took all future words you said out of context. We refused to listen to you after that.

Our seasoned teachers, your mentors, let you drown.

I heard that we made you cry.

I don't remember any of the lessons you taught. I don't remember the methods or strategies you implemented. But I do remember the day you tried to make us silently take notes from the text book. You wrote down our actions that day and shared them with us the next day. You sat on the table in front of our difficult little half of the class and your voice was angry, frustrated. You read to us what the other "good" half of the class had done during the assigned note taking time. They read their text books. They took notes. You launched into a list of what we had done during that class period:

Read the text book upside down
Read a different class book
Did math homework
Made faces at our neighbors
Stared at the wall
Stared at the floor
Stared at our neighbors
Stared at you

By the end I remember that you couldn't keep the scowl off your face. Soon the whole class had burst into giggles.

I remember the end of the year party competition you let us do. I remember us painting you as our own resident Marie Antoinette.

I only say these things because in exactly one year I will be a student teacher, standing in front of a class full of teenagers and trying my hardest not to say the wrong thing, teach the wrong thing, or mess it all up royally.

I only say these things because I've had to evaluate how hard it is to teach a group of teenagers who think they're smarter and more experienced than anyone else in any given room at any given time. I've had to think about how to approach teenagers not much younger than myself and get them to respect me as an authority figure. I've had to say the wrong things a few times, be at a loss of what to do next, and embarrass myself royally to understand how hard it is to be a teacher.

I only say these things because I want to tell you I'm sorry. I want you to know that I admired your courage to come back day after day and try something new, all the way to the end of the year. I want you to know that it wasn't just you. We were a particular group of assholes that had been in classes together for three years. I want you to know that it wasn't your fault that we couldn't respect authority at the ages of 15, 16, and even 17.

I want you to know that you are one of the reasons that I entered the teaching program at my university. I want you to know that you had an impact, even when you were at a loss for words.

Sincerely,
Kelsey S.