For The Love Of Teaching

Life is a great big canvas, slap all the paint on it that you can! This is the door of my classroom a few years back. This week in my pottering around the house readying everything for a new year at work, I have been contemplating teaching. I have been experiencing some new and exciting feelings about the new year. I have had a bit of a love/hate relationship with my chosen profession over the years.

Because we have spent lots of time overseas, and I have taken leave from teaching each time, I have had to suffer taking whatever grade level I was offered in order to get back to work. This has sometimes been quite stressful, as I morph into a different sort of teacher, with a different set of expectations, curriculum directives and professional colleagues. There have also certainly been times (when my son was sick and, in retrospect, dying) where dear colleagues have taken most of the load and let me flit in and out of focus as far as planning and extra-curricular activities. Those people know who they are and are forever treasured for the gifts (in the form of support) they gave me through that time. I have had some truly special and fantastic colleagues in this profession.

Last year however, I had what was my worst, and best year professionally. Worst, in that I had to work in a foreign (to me; not early childhood) year level at a new school with colleagues who were in a professional and personality vaccuum. Best, in that I was offered to teach at University level as a tutor in Inclusive Education and The Arts In Early Childhood (my two big passions). Now the experiences last year were fortuitous and inspiring for a couple of reasons.

I have felt that for a while now (about 8 years in fact) I have been more and more disconnected from my job. It was a means to an end, in short, paid my bills. I really did not want to be working at all. I still loved the daily contact with the children, but had somehow lost my enthusiasm for curriculum, professional development and anything 'extra' that I used to do for my students and my profession. I then spent the year in close contact with colleagues who were negative, bored, uninspiring, burnt out and totally disconnected from the students. It was confronting. I realised that I was not like them at all. And never wanted to be....

The opportunity to teach at university made me see that I did possess the passion (buried under years of stress, grief..bla bla bla) and it slowly started to resurface and bubble over. I wanted to see these fresh young uni students become fantastic switched on teachers, connected to the children and the profession in a positive way.

So, in the last few weeks, for the first time in a long time, my mind has been taken up with thoughts of classroom arrangements, decorations, planning ideas, curriculum extension, and how I am going to incorporate everything I know is best practice into reality!!! (I might say that I have been shifted back into the early childhood part of the school, which has been the springboard for my enthusiasm).

Which brings me to the reasons I love teaching:

The children are a daily source of joy and inspiration.

The challenge of making learning interesting, fun and addictive.

The creative engagement of oppositional and difficult students.

The problem solving of incorporating children with impairments to their learning in the classroom.

Advocating for the above students.

Finding teachable moments in the everyday.

Working with parents.

Being able to use my creative skills to make English, Maths, Science, etc into an artistic and creative endeavour.

Teaching children about beauty, aesthetics and self expression.

Watching while children progress and change in positive ways.

Connecting with like-minded colleagues.

Teaching doesn't just pay the bills, it is a way of expressing myself and creating learning opportunites, both for myself and my students.

Teaching has been good to me and good for me and I intend this year to repay the favours in the most full way I can.....
Watch this space for the goings on in year 2A!