Today I received official word that I had passed my high-stakes teacher assessment. These last six years have been an incredible growth experience for me; moving from filly into being a mare. After receiving my results, I stepped outside and took a deep breath, and loved the world around me. "Almost free." I thought to myself as shadows of clouds wafted lazily by; the more nervous skittering shadows of the leaves from trees dashing in between the lofty giants above.
I find it troubling that I cannot describe the last six years easily; but as I thought about it I realized its not so troubling as it has been humbling. I always rolled my eyes when I was sixteen, overhearing people say that "It gets harder, this is just a phase, you don't understand, you don't appreciate". I've always been a humble soul, with spats of selfish egotism here and there; but I did think I was wise and learned at such a young age. I thought I was wise because I accepted that I was young; but I never thought my ideas on love, life, and identity would change.
I suppose, nine years later, I can easily say that I have grown more in my last six than I had in my first sixteen. My, how life does change you; or leave you broken.
All the pretty ponies
I suppose, the point, is that while hard, I have discovered a lot about myself, and life. I have discovered that the six years I spent in college to become a teacher, ultimately taught me that I did not want to be a teacher in the traditional sense. I love teaching, but I don't enjoy being told how, or what to teach, to students who don't want to be there.
Dark Chocolate Unicorn; my favorite flavor~
And while, I could carry on a discourse a thousand pages long about making school a place for all students, I will not go there. It doesn't matter where our foals, or students, are at; they are always learning. In the thick of teaching, when I had students whose parents had been murdered, or committed suicide, and students who had been raped, and those whom were pregnant, I came to realize once again, in a very "how could I have forgotten" manner; high school is not about academics.
Sailing, my secret passion.
High school is about the four friends that you thought you would see Monday, but died Sunday night, hit by a drunk driver. Instead of that F in geometry, you find your hours filled with picking out a black dress, wondering why your attending a funeral, instead of class.
The place where you realize just how big, and just how small, you really are: the ocean.
Its about love as well; all of that deep smoldering pain that loneliness burns in you; that you think you wont be able to stand for another day without someone to hold. Surprisingly to me, the love that saved my life did not come from the person I would marry; it came from my friends.
Clifton- Orcahorse's first adopted equine.
There is no room in high school for academics; there is hardly room to survive. Perhaps, that has been the same about college; just I was more prepared to deal with the loss and hardship I would endure.
Its when I realized all of this that I realized I did not want to be a teacher. I want to be a friend; to save lives in the ways that I can. To teach the values I live for by simply living them. That is my idea of education.
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