I have exactly two days of course work left in my teaching program. After Thanksgiving, I will be unleashed on my final practicum, teaching third grade to twenty-two seven and eight year olds. Over the last 14 months, my world has been rocked in major ways, I have been thrown curveballs, I have really, desperately wanted to give up. But for some reason, beyond what I can really articulate, I have stuck it out.
Tomorrow I am presenting my project in my Transformative Inquiry class, to my entire cohort, about my inquiry process, my fears, my worries, and my uncertainty about actually pursuing a career in teaching because I am queer. I am the only openly queer person in my cohort (of twenty-nine other student teachers). Sometimes, that can be a very lonely, solitary place. My inquiry has taken me on a journey deep into myself; the internalized shame, the sadness, the disappointment, but ultimately it has led me back to the very reason that others see me differently.
Love. The very thing that sets me apart (who I love, how I love), the thing that has brought sideways glances, whispers, questions… is seemingly all that I am left with. My path of heart, my journey toward fulfillment, everything I do has been mediated by a deep sense of love. For myself, for others, for my family (biological and chosen), and for my students.
I read a quote in this book by Karleen Pendleton Jimenez, in her personal essay titled “On Late Nights: Living In My Queer Teacher Body” that has stayed with me each night since I first read it:
“I don’t know what exposure to hate does to a body. Don’t know if the damage we endure will heal like lungs when offered clean air, or build to excess and die as a liver would. Don’t know how you can live 41 years, work as a highly visible queer activist, and then need to end your life. Don’t know what that means about the stability of my own. I know I’m being dramatic, but I’m not exaggerating. And really, if you can’t be dramatic when you’re afraid, when can you be? On such fearful nights, I eventually force myself back to bed, back to my girlfriend. I hold her close to me. I use that very love that makes me vulnerable as the source of my protection.”
The last sentence is what I think about, constantly. Not only is what makes me vulnerable my source of protection, but it is also a motivator, a driving force, the fire in my belly that tells me, that shows me, that begs me to continue on. That moves my spirit in the direction of teaching, that seeps its way through my sarcastic and cynical exterior and keeps the light and love for teaching burning bright and alive in my heart.
Brene Brown is a social worker who researches and discusses human connection, love, belonging and the power of vulnerability. I have been thinking about how what makes me vulnerable (my identity as a queer woman of colour, in particular) also brings me great pride, joy, and a sense of whole-heartedness. The other piece of my life where I feel vulnerable is around my abilities and capabilities as a teacher. When combined, these areas of my life can seem like a very large mountain to scale. However, what Brene Brown said about vulnerability, very aptly and accurately summed up my thoughts on what, really, truly, teaching means to me.
Teaching, “is the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees.” There. are. no. guarantees. But it is worth every ounce of will I have, just to give it a shot.
