For three years I have been wondering what it would feel like to graduate. What would be running through my head a month, a week, a day before it happens. Graduation is not one of those things that you just say “oh, it will happen some day” and then when you least expect it, it is here and gone. You know an exact date, for sometimes years, and look forward to the day with anticipation. A hovering air of mystery and suspense shrouds this particular day, as if when we reach it my life will be revealed.
Until this point in my existence I have only been preparing to live, not actually expected to live. I have been gathering information with an expectation to survive long enough to use it. Last semester I was participating in 21 credits worth of classes at Edinboro. The stress I went through almost drove me to suicide. For about three hours one dark October evening I fought with myself mentally over what I should do. I was drowning in work and struggling with social connections, my life was perpetually miserable.
I owe my life to some very good friends of mine, who pulled me out of my depression and back onto my feet. They pushed me forward with the full expectation that I would succeed. Once I passed this test I found myself in my final semester. Student teaching was more educational than all the classes I had ever taken combined. No one could have prepared me for the shock and challenge that awaited me. I cried at least once a week at school, and much more at home, started drinking, made out with 4 people, bonded with my family, quit a job, spent a whole day staring at my ceiling, lost 30 pounds and created a business.
As I sit here in the art room at Cochranton Elementary the sound of children’s shrill voices fills the air, buzzing constantly, never ceasing. You start to block it out after a while, it becomes a new standard for silence. A child’s obsession with speaking is too great to tame. So many thought run through their heads at a time, they are unable to hold it in. I love it. I love teaching all together actually. I was born to be a teacher, and hope to continue as one for the rest of my life. Sitting here at my desk gazing out at the classroom I have become so familiar with, I am so happy, so at peace; I never wish to leave. I wake up every morning excited to come to school. I go to bed every evening longing for the night to be over for the new day to arrive. I have been lucky to find something that I love so much in life that it excites me anew every single day.
Perhaps the best thing about teaching is the interaction with the children. I am much stronger at teaching high school students than elementary students. I feel like the constant lack of control in an elementary classroom is ill-suited for my personality and expectations of my students. In a high school classroom I can engage in conversation with my students, I can communicate with them. The amount of communication you can have with an 8 year old is limited at best.
On the other hand, I love the elementary students for their life, vitality, excitement and curiosity. Children are all so wonderfully bright and intelligent, Their ability to absorb information is never broken, never satisfied.
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