To Dream the Improbable Dream... part I

I didn't become a teacher in the usual fashion.
Suffice it to say that I pursued an arts education in the pursuit of a career in advertising, graduated a year before my university had the accreditation to give me a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and went to Los Angeles with my Bachelor of Arts and a job waiting tables.
I learned that LA, like many large cities in the late 80's, was experiencing a teacher shortage. I was able to translate my BA into an emergency credential and Voila! I was a classroom teacher.
My first year was perhaps a tad more difficult than the average teacher's first year. I worked at a large urban elementary school that offered teachers "combat pay", a stipend for spending extra time in intervention or enrichment activities with students. My assignment began mid October in a classroom that had a six week progression of substitute teachers. Many of the savvier parents had already pulled their children from the classroom, and many of the other third grade teachers had used the spaces to get rid of their problem students.
To say it was a difficult year would be understatement. I learned that some of my male students were harassing the female students (grabbing, pulling up skirts, and kissing). I learned that eight year olds may be savvy enough to pick a lock without being savvy enough to lie about it. I had to cross a picket line for the first time in my life, and it was my own picket line (that is a story for another post). I learned that not all schools were equipped with items as rudimentary as text books. And most importantly, I learned that I really loved teaching.
The following year, I was accepted into an alternative credentialing program through my school district. For two years, I attended classes taught by actual classroom teachers who were also teaching in classrooms much like my own. I learned classroom management, differentiating and integrating curriculum, and most of what I would need to know as a new teacher.
More than twenty years later, with a very scripted pre-packaged curriculum, I am sometimes nostalgic for that first year when they allowed a newbie to use whatever materials were available to benefit her students.


photo from: freedigitalphotos.net