Choosing a Pathway

This past school year proved to be a difficult one. Leaving a position for several reasons, and they were all good, solid reasons which I believe were correct, meant spending the year in teaching limbo. Thankfully, I was able to find some adjunct work at two colleges and substitute for a local school district as well. While these hardly equated to a full time paycheck, they did manage to save my sanity and prevent complete financial ruin (although the summer months will require tight purse strings). Fortunately, I have been hired to teach full time at a good public high school in the fall, as well as maintain my adjunct position at the local community college. The tide, I hope, has turned.


With my new position comes a set of questions from my friends and peers that usually surround one central idea: are you eventually going to focus on college teaching? In this day and age, when public school teachers are beset with codified standards, mandatory testing, and tightened budgets, it would seem that the answer to that question would be easy, but it’s not! The truth is I love teaching at both, so how would I choose? Should I even have to? The fact is, if it were up to me, I’d find a way that every teacher could spend time teaching at different grade levels in their content area. The experience gained by working with students in various grades provides incredible insights into the challenges faced by our students during their educational journey, as well as the difficulties tackled by our peers.

As a college adjunct, not only am I privy to the methods and factors that determine success in a college classroom, I am able to take this information and use it to shape my practice, and that of my colleagues, at the high school level. This experience has been invaluable, and disturbing. Our incoming college freshmen are lacking in their ability to think critically and apply it to their interpretation of material or reflect it in their writing. A troubling discovery to say the least! They also lack the stamina to create papers of sufficient length (and therefore depth) that fully explore a given topic. Our public education system’s desire to create proficient test takers has resulted in ill-equipped thinkers who, at the very least, are unable to fully substantiate their ideas, and, at the worst, fear to express their own opinions. Couple this with the “everything at your fingertips” culture and the result is generations of low-stamina, short-sighted adults who are unable to compete in our global job markets.

Not a very bright outcome, is it? Teaching at the high school level is vital to me – not only because I believe that you can’t simply criticize a system, you need to be a part of the change within it, but because it offers experience that can only be found with young people at this age. They offer insight and points of view that are unique, and often times startling. They also leave an indelible mark on you. Just the other day, I received a card from my former students in Hawai`i. It reminds me how much I miss working with teens and how important a teacher can be in their lives. Yes, it’s nice to hear that they miss me or that they liked me; but more importantly, it was great to be reminded of the impact they’ve had on me. I grew as a teacher with them in ways I don’t know if I would in the college arena alone. The fact is, if I am to grow into the educator I so want to be, then I will need to continue my journey through both words of academia. I can’t wait to get back into a high school classroom and I’m grateful for the opportunity! Look out, Fall 2011, I’m on my way!