There are two things that I truly love to do in this world besides spending time with my wonderful and amazingly large family (when you add in all my brothers, sister, nieces, nephews etc). I love to bake desserts of just about any kind, and I love to teach. I don’t love teaching in the sense that it’s my chosen career, so I need to put my very best forward every day. I don’t love teaching in the sense that it’s my chosen career and I do sincerely enjoy it year after year. I mean that I LOVE teaching. I am that teacher who can’t help but shop the clearance sections year-round for deals on school supplies. (Trust me, they pop up at random times and my sons are always rolling their eyes at me.) I am the teacher who has well over 3,000 separate teaching ideas saved to her Pinterest account out of a total of 5100 saved ideas. I am the teacher who knew in kindergarten that she was meant to be a teacher and I followed that dream. I am the teacher who enjoys learning and has a career that needs me to do so on a continuous basis. Simply put, I LOVE teaching.
I started thinking about just how much I love teaching last week as I read the first part of Teach Like A Pirate by Dave Burgess. I felt as though his words were truly speaking to me. He writes about the difference between enthusiasm for something and having true passion for it. His words got me thinking about my true feeling about teaching, and the other main interest I have in my life. (Besides my amazing family of course – they are a category all on their own.) He goes on to explain the different kinds of passion within a career and how they all work together to create an effective person. (I won’t spoil anymore of it for those of you who want to read this fabulous book.) Dave Burgess’ words showed me that teaching really is my true passion.
I know that I really like to bake. I find real happiness in making treats that others can enjoy. I spend quite a bit of time over breaks searching for new dessert and bread recipes. I always have my kitchen stocked with the ingredients to make chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies at a moment’s notice. Baking cookies is relaxing to me, and I spend the first several days of my winter break every year making cookies and other treats to mail out and share with several people. As I was reading Teach Like a Pirate, I began to think about whether or not I have personal passion for this hobby of mine. I realized that while I do truly love baking, I wouldn’t say I am passionate about it; at least not the same way I am about my teaching practice. If I don’t get to my plans to bake over the course of a weekend, I don’t feel as though I have left something unfinished. I don’t feel as though I have missed out on anything. The baked goods would have been nice but going without sweet treats isn’t going to hurt anything.
As much as I promise that I do enjoy my weekends and breaks from my teaching job (I get to hang with my two boys and hubby), I have to admit that I spend a lot of time trying to improve my craft. I feel like I need to be looking for ways to do a better job at reaching all learners, especially my high achieving learners. I am always on the lookout for a new activity, strategy or even classroom decoration. I believe that when I am feeling effective and prepared, my students are receiving the best of me and have a chance to really learn what I am teaching them.
Less important ways that I know teaching is important to me include how I set up my space. I have a huge collection of pens so that I can pick a grading color based on whatever I want. (Seriously, I probably have way too many pens.) I color code my lesson plan book and my grade book and think about ways I can make my classroom an inviting and ultra-organized place. Many, many students have expressed how much they enjoy the way my classroom is happily decorated. All of these little things do scream enthusiasm for the job, but as I learned during this past spring semester, my feelings about my teaching go much deeper than even I expected.
I lost count of the number of times I started class with the excited words “Guess what? I found a new activity for us to do!” It wasn’t just me trying to pep up my students, I was sincerely excited to join in on the ‘fun’ that I had prepared. Nothing gets me fired up quite like a hands-on math activity that will help my students have fun while learning math. My students were able to quote me on this phrase long before the end of the 1st quarter of school was completed.
I spent hours and hours over the course of the last year reading books, articles, tweets and blogger posts searching for anything magical that I could take back to my kids – yes, my students are also ‘my kids’. I truly want each student in my room to find success with a subject that most of them hate, math, and to do this I need to be a learner myself.
The very biggest reason that I know I am passionate about teaching is how much I missed it and my kids when I had to turn things over to my student teacher this past spring semester. Luckily, I was assigned a super competent and wonderful student teacher whom my students liked a lot. And sure, I got to spend hours and hours prepping activities, creating a colorfully themed bulletin board and looking at curriculum for the coming school year while he taught my classes and graded the papers. It was awesome to end the school year with a feeling of being a tiny bit prepared for the coming school year. In the end though, I missed my kids. I missed listening to them groan when I reminded them why I want them to show their math work. I missed the guilty looks when homework wasn’t completed. I missed the complaining about math being too hard and boring. I missed the looks of joy when a student who struggles had their lightbulb moment with a new concept. I missed the students rushing into my room to share things about their day with me. I missed working math problems with my students and explaining ways to make them easier. I missed answering homework questions and helping to ease confusion. I missed planning my units. I just missed my job – even though I do enjoy working with future teachers.
Teaching is in my blood. Teaching is an essential part of me. Teaching is what I do and who I am. Even on my bad days, I know my students are seeing a happy Mrs. Bledsoe – because they tell me this all the time!! “Why are you always so happy?” “How can you love this job so much?” My enthusiasm and passion for my job cannot be faked. I love helping my students learn math. I love working with my students and seeing them grow. Teaching is a huge and essential part of my life. I can’t imagine doing anything else. Simply put, teaching is my passion and I LOVE teaching.
Musing of a Motivated Math Teacher 