Terence Trent D'Arby

I renewed my teaching certificate last night, mainly because I owe it to my family to do whatever it takes to get a job.

I left my first full-time teaching gig in 2004 after three months; I was miserable--not used to so much planning, dealing with kids who took joy out of educating kids who did care, personal life unsettled, sleeping on the floor of my sublet apartment in Oswego, with a U-Haul moving blanket as a cover and having to wake each day at 5:30 or 6.

I was unmarried, no one else depended on my paycheck, so I quit. The principal thought it was the damndest thing he'd seen in all his years, and even mentioned it at a year-end faculty meeting.

I pursued teaching high-school kids because I wanted to teach them how to write journalistically. I envisioned being the school-paper coach/sponsor and teaching a journalism class. Those jobs are out there, but unless you can wait for one to come open, you have to take a job as an English teacher. I may have been a good writer/sportswriter, but it was not because I could diagram sentences, identify clauses and participles or had read any classic pieces of literature.

I got a summer-school job in Deerfield/Highland Park teaching journalism--perfect, but only a summer job. The full-time job I took that fall had block scheduling and my duties were a couple Olde English classes (Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, etc.), and a class for below-grade-level sophomores.

The sophomores were kids who had rough backgrounds or just didn't care and were used to being treated as reputations rather than people. Though they were potentially the most challenging, they were of course the most interesting and lively; at least it was all out in the open with them, unlike snotty, intelligent kids who were more interested in socializing or sleeping than learning. The exhausting part of those kids is that you have to bring all the effort--they don't meet you halfway. You have to stay on them about paying attention, as well as teach them.

I suppose the caveat is that I don't really remember what it was like to be a high-school student. I got good grades, but I don't remember if I was a handful behaviorally. I don't think so, but off the field, so to speak, I certainly was, totaling two cars. I could have applied myself instead of coasting, but I got an ACT score of 29, so I'm not sure what better grades could have gotten me.

Would have been nice to know I was Hispanic, for scholarships and such, but it didn't occur to either me or my Mom. Just didn't have an early ambition from myself or Mom to get after an Ivy League education and didn't have a clue about a major until spring of my senior year. I just always knew I would go to college and needed good-enough grades. Wanted to play some football, too.

So, we tell our kids all the things we know they should do to maximize their time in school and opportunities available, knowing full well that we didn't always follow any of that advice (if it was given). Part of knowing yourself is knowing your weaknesses, and part of wanting your children to succeed is turning them from the mistakes or oversights of your own youth.

This is not hypocrisy, more like do as I say not as I do/did. We're not discussing smoking here. I am after Connor all the time about doing an assignment right the first time or spending more time correcting it; or to be more and better organized; or to care more, which will show itself by remembering to bring things home and take things back to school.

The anger comes from fear, fear that you might not figure out how to impart a love of reading or how to relax for test-taking or make them see the common sense of being prepared and studying; fear that if study habits don't start early they might never, and with three more kids behind him, there will be a day in five or six years that all four kids will have homework, projects, papers, and extracurriculars.

We need self-sufficiency and responsibility from them, and unfortunately for Connor, we're learning how to establish that with him. In the end, maybe we're learning nothing, because every kid is different. Perhaps we will tell all of them what we tell Connor--we don't demand you be the smartest, but we will demand that you do your best. Plenty of gifted kids are left in the chalkdust by kids who work harder.

I know that my brief experience as a high-school teacher makes me place a high priority at least on making sure he/they respect teachers, pay attention, participate, be courteous. How to make them love to learn, that is the intangible.

So, I'm approaching the possibility of teaching again, but from circumstances that couldn't be more different. Married, four kids, mortgage on a house in a great place to raise a family. I'm finally settled, just not career-wise, so I'm ahead of where I was in 2004. Way ahead, as you can see by the pics to the left.

When I was interviewing for the job I was just laid off from, I was also in the running, and quite promisingly, I thought, for a local high school that needed someone to revive the school paper and teach a journalism class and some English classes. Pay would have been almost 20K more than the job I quit. But the horror of teaching English was too fresh and when the magazine job offered me, I took it.

I may take the classes necessary to teach English as a Second Language, perhaps get some Hispanic Scholarship Fund money to help pay for it. I'd like that, maybe in middle school, like sixth grade. When I substitute-taught, I'd try to choose elementary assignments as much as possible, but when it came time to pick a level in which to teach I picked high school because of what I wanted to teach. It would be too many classes to switch my certificate to elementary, so that's out, but ESL in middle school. I could do that.

I mean well, I really do. I have a great track record of doing what I need to get what I want--being a sportswriter at a good-sized daily (never spent a day at a weekly); getting a teaching certificate and job--so gumption is not the problem. The main obstacle to employment is that my skill set is ancient in today's technologically-charged society, and the openings for what I do best are not plentiful and are thus set upon by a herd of those either perfect for the job or willing to accept lower pay.

The last severance check comes next week, and my healthcare ends at the end of the month. I admit I'm still excited by the unknown, and against all logic, not worried.