So why did I choose to do this?

Why I wanted to teach English

It all began with my being selfish. To me, English (literature) was something I found first and foremost, entertaining. Amusing. Pleasurable. A constant day dreamer, I always find that I can delve into a work outside of my reality, quite easily and in most times, willingly and with fervor. It is no surprise then that I enjoyed other subjects with this certain commonality (of being able to live in a different world, temporarily).

Astronomy interested me because I was learning about a world, a universe, physically outside my earthly dimensions. Not only that, there are parts of the Universe that would require a whole lot of imagination: what does it look like inside black holes? (This question has tickled many sci-fi writers. In my opinion, worm holes do exist and lead to a parallel universe). How beautiful must the spewing beams of electromagnetic radiation look like from pulsars? The aurora borealis we can witness here on Earth are, to me, one of the most fascinating phenomena I’ve ever heard of. If watching them is pleasurable, imagine how excited I’d be to watch a supernova or other astronomical, magical manifestations.

History – particularly early U.S. history – interested me because in order to understand the goings-on of certain key historical events, I’d have to set myself in that time period. After watching historical movies, such as Pearl Harbor and Gangs of New York, as well as reading about the tensions between the South and the North during the Civil War era and the Age of American Revolution, I’d imagine what I would do if I were there. Would I be as traditional as the women at the time were or would I be my contemporary self, even then? It would be so different living in a 1770’s household or an 1860’s plantation among slaves. Would I have befriended some of them if I were a poor southern girl or one of their owners? Would I want to teach them to read, secretly? If I belonged to a wealthy family, I probably would have been married by then – and it would have been an arranged one! In the world of literature during the time of the Civil War and slavery, I would have liked to talk to Mark Twain and ask him to humor me (literally, for he was a humorist).

In any case, situating me outside my reality bubble is a proclivity of mine that I’ve had ever since my memory started working its engine.

So, to be honest, once I decided my major to be English, I was certain I had made the right decision. But, I thought, what could I do with a major in English? One of my favorite Professors always mentioned how English majors, when they were children, had at least once in their lives, looked at something, just pondering. Well, I can tell you that many times I lie down in bed staring up at the ceiling, just thinking, or I’d be sitting in the passenger seat, just thinking, or eating breakfast, just thinking. And now, in retrospect, I realize just how experienced and truthful my Professor was and is. English majors like to play with their minds and get worked up about it. She also mentioned, or rather, constantly reminded us, that our parents are probably ok with our majoring in English, but are also probably worrying about what career we can get with a degree in English. That question never popped in my head until a man who, by the way he walked you can tell was a former high school teacher, came into one of my lecture classes and talked to us about being a teacher. Granted he was talking about being a history teacher, since it was during one of my history classes, but still, the idea of being a teacher stayed in my head like a book not yet covered in dust, resting on the shelf, until it is ready to be read.

I imagined my self teaching, that day. “Why would I want to teach, though?” I asked myself. And then it hit me; an idea came to me so suddenly, it caught me by relieving surprise. Along with having a tendency to day dream, I also tend to explain things to people. After school, my parents never had to ask, “How was school?” Ok, maybe they did, but I never just said “fine.” I gave them a lengthy, detailed answer, informing them of what I learned and – dare I say it – teaching them what I had learned that day. I wanted to enlighten them – and that’s what I want to do with my students, although in myriad ways that would fit their needs.

As evinced by the first few paragraphs, I like to work with the imagination, to employ human’s capacity of creativity. With my students, I would stress creative writing. Easing into creative writing, at the beginning of each day, I would have my students engage in freewriting in a journal for five minutes, just have them getting whatever’s running through their minds out on paper so they can see their thoughts in words. A reason I believe they should see their thoughts as meaningful symbols on paper is so they can physically see or develop a style of writing that comes natural to them, for they are not exactly being graded or criticized on their freewrites. By not grading their freewrites, I am creating a learning setting, low in pressure that I hope will take away from students – particularly those who are intimidated by the act of writing – any source of apprehension or anxiety when approaching writing. On certain days, depending on the unit I am teaching, I may have a prompt that would launch their freewrite in a way that would encourage creative thinking or deep, critical thinking and opinion formation.

There are many other aspects of English that I would like to stress, but I feel right now it’s too early to fully know for sure the kind of teacher I’ll be. In the words of a Student teaching expert who came to my methods class, I’m still a “baby.” But my foundation is strong: I want to expand my students' minds.