“Isn’t it more surprising if something succeeds than if it fails?”
-Franz Kafka, “The Rescue Will Begin in Its Own Time”
My primary philosophy of teaching is based on the idea that learning is a self-sought endeavor. I understand that, while learning can be externally influenced, it is mostly internally motivated. As a student in high school, I never really had that internal motivation. As a teacher, I understand that it’s not easy to spark that desire to learn, but I’m willing to do my best.
My own academic career has been fraught with failure, fear, and diffidence. I entered Utah State University straight out of high school primarily because it seemed like the prescription path. The college-preparatory focus that my high school taught is something I want to take a second look at. Certainly, I feel that college was right for me and has led me to a subject that I am passionate about. However, teaching college as the only path for a career ignores all the other methods of finding—and even defining—success in a student’s life. I want my students to do what’s right for them.
Entering the 2016 Fall semester, I had an inkling that I wanted to teach, but wasn’t yet entirely sure. My lack of focus and motivation led to a poor first semester and an abysmal second one. I ended up dropping out of school and resigning myself to the Walmart night shifts. Certainly, I could have made a career from this, but it would have taken time (and possibly a second job) to reach that level of sustainability I was looking for.
It turns out this break was great for me. As I compared my bi-weekly paycheck to local rent prices and—more importantly—looked at the fulfillment I got out of the job, I realized that I truly desired to go back to school; I truly desired to study English and become a teacher. Sometimes a gap year is a bad idea, but in my case it was necessary to better understand what I wanted from my post-high school life. I find we have a very one-dimensional idea of success. I strive to broaden my students’ ideas of what the world has to offer them. As Thomas Armstrong implies in chapter six of his book The Best Schools: How Human Development Research Should inform Educational Practice, emphasizing grades, insisting on traditional four year universities, and little preparation for the adult world are all ways we fail our students.
Two years after my initial failure, I enrolled at Salt Lake Community College in order to work on my Associate’s degree and work on recovering my GPA. Around the same time, I met the love of my life, started a new job (still a night shift), and moved out of my parents’ house. I may have found motivation, but I still lacked sufficient focus. While my time at SLCC was much better than at USU, I still struggled in my schooling. Some of the onus for this can be put on my fatiguing night shift job. Because children are typically required to attend school until the age of adulthood, we often assume that their education is their only responsibility. Realistically, even in the best circumstances this is rarely the case. Especially with regard to economically struggling students, considerations and accommodations must be made.
I began to appreciate that I never needed to hold a job while in high school. My parents made enough to support themselves and our family without any additional income. It’s a privilege that went completely unnoticed and unappreciated until I moved out and had to juggle school and bills. Many high school students aren’t as fortunate as this, and I completely understand how the income necessary to live can take priority over seemingly arbitrary grades. This is something I will forever be conscious of: School cannot always take priority to every student.
Regardless of my newfound struggles, I completed my generals and was prepared to transfer to a 4-year university to continue with my Bachelor’s degree. At Weber State University I found a renewed focus—even an intense desire to learn everything I could about anything I could. I now had the focus and the motivation to achieve my goal and become a lifelong learner.
It wasn’t smooth sailing from there, however, My learning was still hindered by a brutal night shift schedule and a pervasive cloud of fatigue. My schooling was still full of setbacks and disappointments. Yet I still persisted, always looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, doing the best that I could in my situation. Eventually I struck a perfect balance and actually began to succeed.
All these trials are worth more to me than any of the formal schooling I received in those years (though I still value that instruction very highly). If, in an alternate world, I hadn’t fallen in love and thus hadn’t moved out of my parents’ house and into my turbulent adult life, I would have never learned these painful lessons. I would have achieved my goal of becoming a teacher, but would have been a teacher in content knowledge alone. The empathy and understanding I’ve built up over the past several years are an integral part of who I am personally, and in my philosophy as a teacher. Brad Olsen wrote “Your teacher knowledge is more than merely the sum of the theories, techniques, and definitions you have learned… Instead, your whole self… is engaged in how you continually understand, enact, evaluate, and refine your teaching practice” (Olsen, 41). As I continue to change with each new experience, and as I analyse myself through these changes, my philosophy can only continue to develop.
I believe everyone has the ability to nurture a love of learning. For a lot of students, this love won’t necessarily translate into a love of literature; that’s fine. What I enjoy most about English as a subject, though, is that it’s so intersectional. Whether you’re studying an academic subject like history, science, psychology, etc.—or a trade like carpentry, welding, HVAC, etc.—English will be used in some way or another, and is most often the key to further learning within any field. If nothing else sticks with my students, I hope that a desire to learn follows them no matter where they go.
Bibliography
Armstrong, Thomas. “High Schools: Preparing Students to Live Independently in the Real World.” The Best Schools: How Human Development Research Should Inform Educational Practice, Assoc. for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, Va, 2007.
Kafka, Franz. The Rescue Will Begin in Its Own Time. Translated by Michael Hofmann, Shafaei, 2020.
Olsen, B. (2010). pp. 41. Teaching for Success: Developing Your Teacher Identity in Today’s Classroom (1st ed., Ser. Teacher’s Toolkit). Paradigm Publishers.
Mr. Wainwright's Wheelhouse 