What do you want to be?
A question that we ask our children way before they know who they are. Some of us know what we want to be doing early on. Some others not so much. People like me take a lifetime because we are always becoming.
Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end. — Michelle Obama, [Becoming]
For those of you who do not yet know – I am switching careers now. Following a dream that has been in me for almost my whole adult life. I am choosing, and learning to become a teacher.
I am not sure why this took me so long. But it did. I studied to be a software engineer, had a reasonably good career for a quarter century. So why now? The answer was more simple than before, because I answered them with more questions: Why not now? If not now, then when?
Learning to Teach
I am attending university to get my teaching credentials. School, assignments, examinations, projects, friends, classmates, teachers, professors, and I feel I have arrived home again. I have always wanted to learn. Loved to learn.
My courses over the summer were exciting and interesting, if somewhat different from what I have been doing over the past few decades. The past few decades were systems and scaling. Hopefully the next few years is children and growth.
A good part of learning to teach is grounded in psychology. Developmental psychology. At what age do children learn to think in abstract terms? Does it match the age when algebra is being introduced?
On phone calls with the parents, both teachers, they ask with interest about the psychological theories I am learning about. They are both retired teachers after decades of teaching, and still cannot quite help themselves from learning to teach.
Vygotsky, Bandura, Piaget, Gardner, Erik Erikson – they are all rattling in the brain after a fascinating few months of learning.
Teaching to Learn
This month, I get to be a student teacher in an Elementary school classroom. It is a long process to become a certified teacher in California. Something I did not realize.
My children had excellent teachers and mostly remember them with fondness. I have interacted with many of them over the years, some of whom have become friends to me too. But I still hadn’t realized the long journey it takes to become a teacher. All the exams, certifications, permits, trainings (mandatory, required, essential!), and all the preparations they do throughout the year to be ready for the children in the classroom. I have always heard of good teacher shortages, and I now know why. It is a long process, and a demanding journey for a profession that is famed for less pay especially in the Bay Area. But all of this has only made me respect teachers more.
On one side, it means only those who truly want to teach come to the profession, but on the other hand, I feel we are missing out on talent that future generations could benefit from. I do not know what the solution is.
As part of our teaching credential, they asked us to name one reason we each chose to become a teacher. The answers were varied : community, giving, learning, children, growth. But whatever it is, I beamed around at my fellow teachers-to-be. They are all a little polymathic in their abilities and interests. Artistic, analytical, curious, cogent, enthusiastic and genuinely considerate and intelligent. The children who will be benefiting from them are lucky indeed.
Please wish me luck in this endeavor. Becoming is a journey.