What do you want to be when you grow up? The answer was so simple when I was four years old - I would become a train man, an airplane man, or a nurse in a hospital. I have since decided that I should probably give up on the original plan of becoming a "man". And while I like trains, airplanes and helping people, it turns out that there are many other possible careers that I could also enjoy.
Right now, I'm in the very broad categories of "student" and "teacher" (which interestingly enough, does tend to involve train or airplane relative motion diagrams and a good deal of helping people). The past few weeks, I discovered some things I wouldn't have guessed about myself and my feelings towards teaching and learning; this has led me to feel quite certain that teaching (along with the related learning that teachers do) is a career that I can love. So I thought I'd share.
Life outside of teaching has been downright difficult lately. As I've been working through the ending of a relationship which mattered a lot to me, I've struggled to say goodbye to the hopes and dreams I had with someone whose dreams have changed. It has been challenging for me to redefine my value - not in a man's definition of my worth, but in God's, to strive to keep loving with my whole heart rather than building walls around it, to learn from the things I did wrong which contributed to this ending, but still forgive myself for the ways in which I wasn't the girlfriend I should have been, and to walk everyday with God. These things are easy to write down, but I'm finding they are much much more challenging to live. I've never experienced a broken relationship before, and God has a lot to teach me about love, grace and life. As I've been working through these things, I've felt a lot more sadness than I'm used to. So after our last weekend together, I was very worried that I wouldn't be able to teach well - that on top of everything, I would let my students down.
But an amazing thing happened last Monday. I walked into class with my bowl of gummies for our gummy bear circuit, my students said hi, and I just felt so much joy (even more joy than I would feel if I had a bowl of gummies on a regular good day!) As the class went on, and I bopped around from group to group, I realized more and more just how much I love teaching. It actually almost made me cry, and I'm not a very leaky person. It just hit me how blessed I am to be part of my students lives right now, as they're discovering who they are in their world - a blessing which is too easy for me to take for granted. It continues to surprise the socks off me: when I'm with my students, it's as if all of my concerns and sadness slip away. Of course, the things I need to work through are still there - that can't be avoided. But it has been a wonderful surprise to learn that teaching (especially with my students who are honestly such a dream class) really is a safe haven for me.
My science side can't help but look at this as a bit of a self-experiment. Somehow teaching continues to bring me joy even when my other work feels heavy and requires extra effort to complete. I think this suggests at least one good answer to the question of what I should be when I grow up. My dad, true to his funny engineer self, suggested (among other very loving encouragements) that I "re-calibrate" now that I'm on my own. I won't dive too much into my relationship-recalibration thoughts on this blog, but so far my career-recalibration thoughts have been reaffirming the path I'm on. I truly do love teaching. I love seeing those beautiful aha moments when the student starts to piece everything together. I love being part of positive change, and teaching is all about growth and change - change in my students and change in myself. It's terribly nerdy, but as my poor friends who put up with endless demo's know, there is so much physics-happiness to be shared, and I just love sharing it. And now I've learned that teaching brings me joy even when life is not easy. I really do have one of the best jobs a person could ever ask for.
The question of what I want to be when I grow up isn't fully answered yet, however. The next aspect of this question is of course, "What kind of teacher do I plan to be?" I have a feeling, however, that this second question will require more words than the first, so I'll save it for another day.
