While running this morning, I thought about careers. I think I was distracting myself from how many minutes I had left of a running interval, but I fell down a rabbit hole of reflection about what I thought I would do and what I actually do. When I was in high school, I was adamant about not wanting to go into teaching. Zero desire. I also didn't want to follow the path of so many other Wilsons into medicine or law. Instead, I had become addicted to the high of public speaking. I haven't really played with theatre, but I think that must be a similar high. I am rubbish at talking with people, especially in mundane small talk and social niceties. I am shy to the point of being miserable. You've no idea the lengths to which I will go to avoid speaking with someone I don't know. So how does a shy girl end up giving speeches? Well, there is art to public speaking and it is magic to persuade someone. There is a cue and then you are in the spotlight for a few minutes and no one talks back. You have this golden oportunity to sway your audience to believe something, to take an action, to make a change. You don't have to learn their names, you will never see them again, the Q and A afterwards will be be about the topic and not personal . . . At the same time, it is exhausting. To be sure, there is a high, but it is followed by a crash because you pour your everything into making those few minutes count, making them really spectacular for your audience. You have to be charismatic, inspirational . . . You are selling something and have to be Salesman of the Year. I am not sure it can be explained to someone who hasn't done it, but public speaking was one of my great passions. I really wanted to be a professional public speaker or perhaps a speech writer, because although I'd never heard of logos, ethos, and pathos, I was also a good writer.
Then I went off to college and had crappy advisers who told me those weren't real careers and I somehow drifted to the English department since I only seemed good at reading and writing and really couldn't think of anything else I'd really like to do except horticulture, which my parents discouraged. Once there, I was told that I must teach, for what else is there to do with an English degree? And so I became a teacher, not for any lofty goals of bettering mankind or wishing to serve or even love of teaching or language. I just fell into it.
In a few weeks, I will be starting year nineteen of teaching English. That is a long for time for a career I didn't passionately pursue. Somewhere along the way, I did discover that I really do like what I do. Often, I love it. Sometimes, I don't at all. I am not at all the most fabulous teacher ever, but I am good at it, hopefully better than just good. What I didn't foresee is how much like public speaking it would be. When I am up in front of twenty or thirty sophomores or juniors, I have a narrow window of time to get them to buy into what I am selling. Maybe it is a grammar skill that I need to convince them to learn. Maybe a point of view I need them to consider about what we are reading. I have to be enthusiastic, I have to teach the skill, I must be ready for the Q & A, I have to hold their attention for as long as it takes. It is not option for them to not buy into the idea - there is a state test that will determine all our fates. Trickier than public speaking, I also am doing a little refereeing and crowd control, maybe real discipline. I might have to move a child or make someone put away a phone. I might have to play counselor. Maybe dispense a band aid to the child who discovers a cut while I am in the middle of verb tenses. If I am lucky, I will only be interrupted twice by the intercom or a knock on the door. Don't forget, I have to hold their attention and sell the idea, which means I have to believe in my product. It is fifty minutes of being on a stage with an audience that might argue and whine. And most days, I love it. Between classes, I will race to the bathroom or sort out some class sponsor thing or run a paper to the office or answer a question about what we did yesterday . . . until the bell rings again. That's my cue to start class.
I always dread school starting and look forward to it at the same time. Working with teenagers is this perplexing mix of exhaustion and rejuvenation. All those new ideas, still some measure of innocence, new minds just waiting to be stretched. I dread being "on" for six hours a day. Five days a week. Every week. It purely wipes me out. I think I physically wilt for a few minutes when the last kid walks out. On the other hand, there is some magic that still happens in the give and take of being in a classroom. And until this morning, I hadn't thought about how alike teaching and public speaking are.
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