5 years

As of tomorrow night at about 11:15 pm, I will have lived in North Carolina for 5 years. I find it curious that the eve of one of the most monumentally important days in my career, my first day of student teaching, coincides with the anniversary of one of the most life changing events in my personal history.

I moved to North Carolina after spending the summer working as a Director of the ceramics department at a sleep-away summer camp for girls in Maine. I taught girls ranging in age between 6 and 16, seven classes per day for 6 days per week. I got that job because I had “some” experience teaching afterschool art classes when I was working on my undergrad degree in Fine Arts.

That job hasn’t crossed my mind in months, mostly because I have been so busy with summer classes and preparing for student teaching. But today I can’t help but think about how it was the pivotal moment where I began to realize that teaching is something that I enjoy doing and do very well. To be honest, I had no idea about what tasks are age appropriate, classroom management, let alone curriculum. I remember spending the first few days before camp obsessively organizing the space and thinking about systems for firing and glazing. I made a notebook for lesson planning and drew pictures of projects I thought I could make with each age group.

To say the least, it was exceptionally difficult. I worked all of the time and struggled with loneliness and burnout. But my students were productive and enthusiastic. At every age the campers wanted to try new things and many returned during open studio hours to spend more time working on their projects. I remember helping a 7 year old make a gigantic hand-built teapot- she cried but I refused to do the work for her, only showed her how to proceed, and encouraged her not to give up.

And now as I am thinking about that experience, I wonder what it was that made my students feel so successful. For the first class session with each group, I purposefully used a sweet clear voice and when it was time to go over the rules I changed to a very serious, low tone when I told them my main rule: “No negativity.” I explained to them that there is no right or wrong answer in art and that they would most likely experience difficulty, and the reason I was there was to help them through it. I encouraged them to persevere, and they accepted my challenge. A few weeks later, I heard a 15 year-old girl chide another when she was complaining and I was surprised that they remembered.

In my personal life, I think a lot about cycles and patterns. Tonight, as I am relaxing after one of the busiest and most confusing weeks of my life where I prepare for what is to come over the next four months, I find myself in the same place I was 5 years and 10 weeks ago. Just like right now, I felt like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and was just using what I knew to survive. The difference is now I know about differentiation, age appropriate tasks, curriculum, planning, and integrating content. For the past few days I have felt like a deer in the headlights, but my spirits are lifting, I am feeling more comfortable, in control, and am beginning to understand the complexities of what is to come over the next few weeks.