I LOVE to teach

Okay, so this isn't really poetic, but the last post came from a daydream about the life we'd be living if we weren't living the life we're living. I put that question on my blog and one friend said, "Same song, second side." I have to say that that is where I am today.

It is only Tuesday and my week is full. I'm teaching two writing classes this week and I ended up texting my friend to say, "Teaching makes me feel centered and whole." I've had almost two years with limited teaching. My friends keep asking why I'm not teaching because I sound happiest when I am. I am not only happy, but also motivated, centered, challenged, engaged, and most of all, feeling like I am fulfilling a purpose in life, which is not what I feel when I am typing data entry all day in a computer under florescent lights, in an ergonomically unsophisticated chair.

So I thanked my boss for giving me more teaching assignments out of the office. I emailed some friends the following:

Amy, your imagery is palpable, your longing even more so. Claim your life, girl. Interestingly enough, I've been teaching again this week, using your poem you contributed to Caryn's blog, and I am beginning to re-claim my life as a teacher. Happiness is a heavy oak desk, with a stack of dreams written on torn notebook paper, and 13 students eager to please. Happiness, for me, is the 7th grade boy, who barely makes eye contact through his extra-long bangs and is embarrassed by his father's presence on the first day, slumps in his chair, but finally speaks out. He cracks a literary joke that all the other awkwards get, smiles a sideways smile, still no eye contact, but now, he knows he is a writer. Happiness is the ESL (English Second Language) student who returns the second day even though he had no idea what I was talking about the first day. Oh, and happiness is the other ESL child who produces an introduction to his story about his future that is so provocative I get goose bumps, and he grins when I tell the class that his first three sentences could be read in a published novel. "Three out of five children in Taiwan don't know what a blue sky looks like. I gaze at the half-dead sky through my little window and wonder."

Those amazing two sentences happened simply because I asked the students to start their story in three different ways: dialogue, fact, or description.

So I know I'm a teacher when I can get students to produce words like that. Yet, i am humble in this knowledge. It's a channeling sort of activity, it's, dare I say, God's work through me.

When we engage in our calling, we are whole. We are satisfied. We are content to put aside the excessive television watching, the addictive habits of the evening, and we continue on in our giving of gifts.

I asked to live the life I dreamed; same song, second side. I received.