and once again, you rise...
Seems odd to think now that I am launching into a new endeavor in my life--at this point in my life. I have peers who are knee-deep in their retirement planning, even in this economy, and who seem to be moving strongly in that direction, and I'm stepping into phase 2 (or is this phase 3?)
Teaching in the American Humanics program with Dr. Matthew Jendian is a gift--and it feels like life, it feels like another chance, it feels...well, right.
I have admired the program that Matt has bred at Fresno State-the quality of students, the practical process, the academic rigor, the hire-ability of the graduates, and when I began to teach one course, I was grateful, at 2 courses, I was amazed, and now at 3+, I am astounded.
I am accustomed to the classroom-I feel like I was born there, and I am approaching the 30 year point of teaching in higher education. Some days, I am nervous, and tenuous, and fearful. Most days, I pray and pray and pray that I will not screw up, that I will remember all that I need to remember, and that I will be a better listener than talker. I want to connect with at least one student on a deep, thinking level. I don't want to frustrate the learning, but, enhance it.
Gosh, I was teaching when I was a kid--and, all I ever wanted to be was a teacher. I didn't really care where/what/who I taught, I just wanted to teach. And, teach, I did. In Aiken, Charleston, Ft. Worth, Garland, Anaheim, LaMirada, Mill Valley, Indonesia, Inner Mongolia, Fresno...and, I have taught Marketing, Economics, Bible, education, speech, communication, small groups, teaching methods, early childhood education, child/family/community, History of Education, Philanthropy, Grantwriting, grantwriting, grantwriting... I get to continue.
Do people really get to spend their lives doing exactly what they wanted to do when they grow up?
After the brain hemorrhage, the episode, I somehow felt that I would probably never teach again. I thought I would plutz, sputter, ramble, get lost, ramble more, chase rabbits, lose track..and, admittedly, I probably do all of that--but, at the end, I look at the faces, and see the eyes, and glimpse at the minds--and, I got to do it again--I get to teach.
It sounds so cliche, but, I never think about possessing the "gift of teaching." I think of teaching AS the great gift TO me. The pleasure of communicating truth, and sometimes theory, and sometimes stories, and sometimes dreams--to others.
I recall Leon. A first grader at Ladson Elementary in Ladson, SC. A low-country poor, poor school. I was the "man teacher" in first grade. The black kids were still trying to adjust to the school, in 1976, SC wasn't that far away from it's history of educational apartheid, and, I had spent my summer in Charleston at Sacred Heart School, teaching music as the "white teacher." I had learned "Stoned in Love with You" from my students, and I had taught them "Bill Grogan's Goat" and an Appalachian Carol--they had taught me to eat shrimp--shell and all, and to drink cheap beer after a Mass in Creole and Gullah, and they had taught me to....breathe deeply before I spoke, and to look intently at their faces, and they had taught me... to be a teacher. Leon called me "Mr. Cinnamon" and other names, and he completed my degree in education--by giving me a real, live student in which to focus my efforts and gifts. Leon to Zenobia to Chuck to Ramey to Todd to Charity to Matthew to Quincy to Amardeep to Philip. Decades of names and faces, and lives that have intersected with mine. The "man teacher," the white one.
I walked in the footsteps of Pat Conroy and Carole Ricketts. I read Parker Palmer. I breathed in the Charleston air, and exhaled all that I had learned from loving parents and a life surrounded by faith and food and family. I was foreign there, but, I learned to love being the foreigner, the "white one" the "man teacher."
And, today, in Fresno, again, I am foreign, I am the white one, the man teacher--and it feels so right, again.
When I thought it was over, once again, I rise to teach.
Teaching in the American Humanics program with Dr. Matthew Jendian is a gift--and it feels like life, it feels like another chance, it feels...well, right.
I have admired the program that Matt has bred at Fresno State-the quality of students, the practical process, the academic rigor, the hire-ability of the graduates, and when I began to teach one course, I was grateful, at 2 courses, I was amazed, and now at 3+, I am astounded.
I am accustomed to the classroom-I feel like I was born there, and I am approaching the 30 year point of teaching in higher education. Some days, I am nervous, and tenuous, and fearful. Most days, I pray and pray and pray that I will not screw up, that I will remember all that I need to remember, and that I will be a better listener than talker. I want to connect with at least one student on a deep, thinking level. I don't want to frustrate the learning, but, enhance it.
Gosh, I was teaching when I was a kid--and, all I ever wanted to be was a teacher. I didn't really care where/what/who I taught, I just wanted to teach. And, teach, I did. In Aiken, Charleston, Ft. Worth, Garland, Anaheim, LaMirada, Mill Valley, Indonesia, Inner Mongolia, Fresno...and, I have taught Marketing, Economics, Bible, education, speech, communication, small groups, teaching methods, early childhood education, child/family/community, History of Education, Philanthropy, Grantwriting, grantwriting, grantwriting... I get to continue.
Do people really get to spend their lives doing exactly what they wanted to do when they grow up?
After the brain hemorrhage, the episode, I somehow felt that I would probably never teach again. I thought I would plutz, sputter, ramble, get lost, ramble more, chase rabbits, lose track..and, admittedly, I probably do all of that--but, at the end, I look at the faces, and see the eyes, and glimpse at the minds--and, I got to do it again--I get to teach.
It sounds so cliche, but, I never think about possessing the "gift of teaching." I think of teaching AS the great gift TO me. The pleasure of communicating truth, and sometimes theory, and sometimes stories, and sometimes dreams--to others.
I recall Leon. A first grader at Ladson Elementary in Ladson, SC. A low-country poor, poor school. I was the "man teacher" in first grade. The black kids were still trying to adjust to the school, in 1976, SC wasn't that far away from it's history of educational apartheid, and, I had spent my summer in Charleston at Sacred Heart School, teaching music as the "white teacher." I had learned "Stoned in Love with You" from my students, and I had taught them "Bill Grogan's Goat" and an Appalachian Carol--they had taught me to eat shrimp--shell and all, and to drink cheap beer after a Mass in Creole and Gullah, and they had taught me to....breathe deeply before I spoke, and to look intently at their faces, and they had taught me... to be a teacher. Leon called me "Mr. Cinnamon" and other names, and he completed my degree in education--by giving me a real, live student in which to focus my efforts and gifts. Leon to Zenobia to Chuck to Ramey to Todd to Charity to Matthew to Quincy to Amardeep to Philip. Decades of names and faces, and lives that have intersected with mine. The "man teacher," the white one.
I walked in the footsteps of Pat Conroy and Carole Ricketts. I read Parker Palmer. I breathed in the Charleston air, and exhaled all that I had learned from loving parents and a life surrounded by faith and food and family. I was foreign there, but, I learned to love being the foreigner, the "white one" the "man teacher."
And, today, in Fresno, again, I am foreign, I am the white one, the man teacher--and it feels so right, again.
When I thought it was over, once again, I rise to teach.
posted by Downtown Don Simmons at
9:27 PM
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