The Albemarle Sound

#9 on my 30@30 list was Teach Again. This was a tough one for me to decide on. I truthfully did not really want to include it as something to do this year but I knew if I didn’t force myself to I would most likely regret it the rest of my life. For years now I have wrestled with teaching, especially in secondary education. I have sworn off ever going into a classroom again only to become determined to return to teaching the next day. It has been back and forth since I left my full-time teaching job 7 years ago, and through those years there has been only one constant, I had not tried it again. So I did.

At some point in my high school years I decided that I would grow up and become a high school social studies teacher, a basketball coach…and maybe tennis, live somewhere in the south preferably North Carolina (not to far, not to close), and find a place as close to the beach as possible. When I finally reached college I declared myself an undecided major. It seemed way too reasonably to follow in the family footsteps and choose right off the bat a career in education. However, after only one semester I gave in and made it official. Despite contemplating switching majors many times, and a horrible student teaching experience, I graduated and passed my license exam to become certified. And then lo and behold, after a month of searching, I landed my dream job!

I still think about that year of teaching in Currituck, North Carolina…every. day. Over the past few years I tell people the biggest regret in my life is leaving that place. But I can admit, it was hard, right from the start. I really struggled with teaching high school, being away from my family and Amy, and adjusting to such a different culture. After the first three weeks I returned to PA over a weekend for a wedding. I remember stopping for the night at my friend Matt's house in D.C. and venting so much frustration about education and how much I hated it. It is hard to admit but I made up my mind teaching wasn’t for me 5 months into it.  But I’ll get to that.

I can name a few reasons why I wanted to teach again. 1) After spending 7 years trying to do everything I could possibly do to get away from teaching, I had gotten nowhere. The only option left, really, was to return to the classroom against my own will. 2) I know…that when I lived in NC I hated my life most days. I was miserable. But most of my thoughts now were that I could have done it…it would have gotten better. 3) I remain very passionate about education, and I still LOVE to teach, but how would I know if I still hated the classroom if I never took a chance and tried it again? So I put my name on some substitute list (it sucked, I was miserable filling out these app.’s) and got called in March from Eden Christian Academy.

It was amazing how it all came back to me so fast…at least how much I disliked it! I couldn’t stand most of the middle school classes, they were so immature and irritating. After period 2 I was bored out of my mind and had drank my weight in coffee. You know what’s amazing about education right now? With all the advances and supposed improvements in how we teach, TEACHERS STILL GIVE HANDOUTS. In the middle of all this, however, I LOVED being a part of a community again. I LOVED how when I came in next time to sub the kids were excited to see me and laughed at my dumb jokes as if they were the greatest thing ever. I LOVED the few moments when I got to teach something for real, and they listened.

I am very, very glad I taught again this year. I had to do it. I have tormented myself for so long over my decision to leave Currituck. And sitting here now, I could be a teacher for the rest of my life. Would it be my dream job as I had believed in high school? No. But it would be a great job, and I could do it. There is so much more I wish I could write about teaching…but this point in my life is not the time, maybe in a few years when I can go a day without thinking of Currituck.

It was a cold, clear night in late December 2004. I was the JV coach for the Currituck basketball team and we had just gotten crushed by Bertie, a school located two hours away in the middle of nowhere North Carolina. I had almost gotten in a fight with the clock operator. The A.D. was driving the bus home, and the head coach and I were in the front 2 seats, talking a little about the team and the school. After a while the A.D. turned to me and said “hey look out your window, that’s the Albemarle Sound we are crossing.” The sound was big and the bridge took a while. It was a beautiful sight, with the sky melting into the still cold black waters. I thought how odd it all was that I would find my life here, on a bridge, crossing a sound, in a place I didn’t know existed until now. I closed my eyes and immersed myself in an imaginative reality, in which this WAS my life, for the next 35 years; The A.D., the coach, the players, the sound…and I thought I could do this, and I smiled. The next day I returned to PA and Ohio for Christmas break. And when I drove back down to NC I had made up my mind to leave after only one year in Currituck…. #9: TEACH AGAIN