On Stage

When I started college I had ever intention of becoming a neonatal nurse. I had this intense desire to treat newborns. Every intention. But, like most college students my plans changed as the years pressed on. I decided in my junior year to focus on kids in a different way. I decided that teaching was something I really wanted to work towards. So, another few years and low and behold, I had a teaching credential to my name and a job in a 4th grade classroom.
I can look back and say the first few years were all about survival. Plunging into each and every day with incredible energy, forethought, and planning. I remember spending over 12 hours a day in my classroom, planning, organizing, just working endlessly to keep my head above water. I remember having a box of cereal and a carton of milk in my fridge for those emergency late night dinners.
11 years now...11 years of planning, organizing, 5 grade levels, 5 schools, multiple classroom moves, and countless hours of planning. 11 years of days where I walked in the door at the last possible minute and out the first minute I could escape. And at the same time, 11 years of working at home at night grading papers and researching lesson ideas, going into work for extra duty time, taking classes to make myself better at my job, joining committees, heading up tutoring groups...whatever it took day in and day out.
Yet in looking back. Trying to look at myself from the outside in. I find that I become a different person in the classroom. I absolutely hate speaking in front of people. I dread Back to School Night, I avoid speaking in front of colleagues, and I sit in the back of the room during trainings. But in my classroom, in front of my students, I shine. I am on stage. I become this person that is doing something, making a difference, making a connection for some child. Anyone of them. Maybe 2 kids one day, and 15 the next. I find myself going into a zone where the only things that matter are what I am saying, who is listening, and what is actually understood. I feel like an actor on stage, presenting my best to my audience.
Don't get me wrong. Teaching is exhausting, in a way that others really don't understand. I am on stage, everyday, all day long. It is my job to entertain for 6 hours straight. Because if I don't really entertain...I lose kids, I lose their interest, their attention, their desire. It is MY job to entertain.
And even when I complain. Even when I don't know if I can do it for another day. Even if when I want to scream from the stupid level of stress I am under. I love it. I really do love what I do. I love losing myself, and all the outside daily stresses, in the daily mundane tasks of teaching. I love seeing the spark, I loving making the connection with my students.
I love being an actor in my own classroom.

Lots of love,
The Grady's