The Allure of Teaching

Before I had my own kids, I had classrooms full of kids.  I loved the looks on their faces when something really clicked.  I loved to explore the world with them and often got as excited as they did.  Never will I forget the day we were studying weather and had just talked about hail when a rare hail storm hit the Chicago area.  We ran out into the yard and gathered up platefuls of hail.  The kids looked at me as if I had magically caused the sky to open.  They couldn't stop talking about the circles on the hail stones, and how they were formed by tumbling over and over in the clouds before falling to the earth.  That group of energetic 5-year-olds has now graduated from high school.  Maybe one or two are pursuing a career in meteorology.  Another child that stands out in my mind is a 5-year-old color whiz.  Of course by the time kids are 5, they have usually mastered their colors, and so I always had a unit on secondary colors.  You know, blue + yellow = green, etc.  While the other kids were overlapping color paddles to see the results, this little boy wanted to know what would happen if we mixed a "new" (secondary) color with an "old" (primary) color.  I casually mentioned that you would get a tertiary color, like red + green = brown.  He spent the rest of the year at the easel mixing various colors and reporting his results.  By the end of the year, 11 other 5 year olds knew the word tertiary.  That child has most likely been driving for more than a year now; he is probably also quite an artist or graphic designer.  The excitement of reading a book or singing a song or dancing or digging in the dirt with a completely engaged group of children is without compare.

 photo courtesy jiji

This is part of the reason I chose to say yes to this opportunity to go work at a school in Africa. I have no idea what to expect. I haven't been in the formal role of "teacher" in many years. I'm feeling inadequate. Will I remember all those tricks I used to have up my sleeve? In addition to spending time in the classroom, I will help to train teachers. That makes me feel really inadequate! However, I feel certain that I'm being called to go on this trip. I have some fears and reservations. I'm starting to get very sad about leaving my family for 18 days. However, I hope to come home more excited to spend time with my own kids; more eager to teach them, and read to them, and dance with them. While it will be hard to be gone for so long, I hope a greater appreciation for my own kids is just one of the many lessons I'll discover while I'm gone.