Entering the orchard

An apple for the teacher, right? Not so fast.

I’ve decided that the apples are not given to the teacher, but are given by the teacher. We are the keepers of the orchard, and our crops are the
apples—the children of the future.

As I finish my student teaching, I realize that I have many things to reflect upon. Things didn’t go great, but they didn’t go badly either. I learned a lot, failed a lot, had great, glorious, soaring moments of success, and I cried a lot. Lots of crying. More tears than I ever imagined lurked behind my eyes. I succumbed to more crying than I’ve done in the past ten years—well, at least in the last five years.

All this weeping over this last semester during my student teaching has come as a shock to me. I’m a tough cookie. I’m a single mom of two great kids, now 12- and 9-years old. In fact, I’ve been a single mom since my younger child was born. But that’s another story. I worked 15-years for a Fortune 100 corporation as a successful, well-paid, middle-level manager. I was responsible for a $20 million dollar-plus annual revenue stream, had 35 employees reporting to me, and dealt with high-level corporate clients on a daily basis. I was a ball-buster and a hard ass. Not a crier. That all changes when you are faced with 120 high school teenagers each day who don’t give a rat’s ass about literature. To compound matters, you are also faced with some teachers who don’t give a rat’s ass either.

About two years ago, I decided that I wanted to teach literature. I wanted to change the world, inspire generations of young people to think deeply about their contributions to society, and promote lofty, inspired idealism. I already had a degree in Corporate Communications and Journalism, and with my experience in human resources and corporate training, I felt I had a proven track record in curriculum design and instruction. Had I known then what I know now, I would have realized that I should have chucked everything that I thought I knew about teaching out the window.

Therefore, with this blog, I plan to chronicle the final leg of my journey in Teacher Education and my subsequent entry into the domain of public schools—one that is vastly different from the corporate world from whence I escaped. Thus far, my time transforming myself into “The Teacher” has been enlightening, frustrating, terrifying, wonderfully satisfying, and entirely exhausting.

Throughout this career-changing process, I feel as though I have been wandering, cultivating, and reaping the fruits of my labors Hopefully, I will savor the sweetness of my success as a teacher. However, there are also some poison apples dangling among the trees. Trust me, there are quite a few. So, join me now as I step into the thick of it. You can think of me as an Orchard Keeper.