I am actually forcing myself to write this blog entry. I want to write something that commemorates my first year of teaching in an actual classroom outside of ESL or special enrichment classes. Here’s an admission: I’m scared to write it out
I realized in the past year that I have penchant of taking on difficult jobs that people deem “easy”, such as writing, social media management, and teaching. What I struggle with the most when I talk about teaching in a public space is that I’m talking to a crowd at the risk of attracting people who think they can teach just because they’ve been a student.
See, it’s not that easy. I find that teaching is the fragile vocation of building up necessary skills and character in a student. It also entails being a counselor and sometimes mediator between parent and child. It’s addressing a crowd of five to as many as fifty in the room while reaching out to the individual. It’s one thing and everything at once. It’s looking at a big picture but playing it out dot by dot, similar to a Seurat.
While Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George is a musical thought piece on art, passion, and its consequences, George’s solo seems to sum it up well enough through the genius of Sondheim’s lyrics.
Entering the world of the hat,
Reaching through the world of the hat
Like a window,
Back to this one from that.
Studying a face,
Stepping back to look at a face
Leaves a little space in the way like a window,
But to see-
It’s the only way to see.
I guess where people see the big picture, I work with the dots, I always have. And sure, anyone can draw a dot. But can they put the dots together to make a coherent picture? With teaching, with writing, with social media, I can.