Passion

..."What are you passionate about? What makes you cry?"...

I sat on a gray office chair, watching a thirtyish-year-old black man rub his hands on his head in frustration as he tried to write his first paper ever. "I don't even know where to start," he said. "I can't write a paper." The ideas from my literacy classes raced through my thoughts - writing is thoughts communicated on paper; think out loud to model the process I would go through; encourage him to take a risk and just write! I tried communicating these things; then, I sat and let him try.

As he typed, his fingers imitating confused birds pecking the ground for food, I sat nearby and tried to read my own book.  The subject matter of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed matched too well with the conflict in front of me to allow me to focus on getting through more pages. I wanted to help this person who was trying so hard, but I couldn't. I froze, unable to even offer to look at the grammar before he printed his paper and left for dinner.

How can I help a person when I'm about to cry over them?  If tears are a sign of passion, I found mine in that moment: People - precious human beings - should not have to feel helpless. They should not have to feel like they are incapable of communicating their ideas. Language is by no means the only essential of life - but, oh, the way it lets people soar....

Right now, I'm giving this passion vitality by working toward licensure in both elementary and preprimary education. When I tell people this, my excitement flowing from the lilt of my voice and the smile that tilts my head and raises my shoulders with it, I sometimes hear this question:

"Why would you want to teach preschool? Have you considered higher levels of teaching?"

The people who ask me this question, beating certain words into their slanted form, seem to have the idea that preschool is a cop-out sort of job.  Just playing and singing the alphabet and painting and avoiding complete chaos, right? Oh, wait - there's naptime, too. They look at me, a self-proclaimed lover of academics, from English and theology to mathematics and physics, and wonder why I would reject all of that rich content to work with students who can barely write their names. A few ask, "Won't I get bored?" Their glances say, "Don't you realize what a waste it is to use your intelligence on them?"

No. Decidedly and unabashedly No to both of those questions. When adult students come for tutoring needing the same skills that I would teach in elementary school, something is wrong. Regardless of what brought them to that point - their own decisions, their parents' decisions, a bad school system, or anything else - it is not acceptable. By the time they get to that point, of course, it does them little good  to hash out why; the best course of action is to figure out how to step forward from where they are now. Their strengths in other areas give the new skills they learn a colour so unique, a taste so layered, that beauty shines through in a way otherwise impossible. But their path to that beauty is hard; my heart still asks, "Why?" Each person has a different story, but I know a few of the statistics: By second grade, a 2000 word vocabulary gap appears between students from low income homes where there is little vibrant conversation and those from "professional" homes. The gap in language doesn't magically get smaller as the years go on, either. In some places, prison facility needs are planned using third or fourth grade reading scores; the fewer that pass, the more room made in jail.  

This doesn't mean that I think all children should be forced to attend preschool, or that a person's entire life is saved or broken by their first five to ten years of existence. It doesn't mean that I think teaching middle school, high school, or college (or, shudder, not teaching at all) is a lesser calling in any way. I'm not even claiming that I know for sure that I'll be a preschool or elementary teacher for my entire life. I won't save the world with my work, and a perfect education system won't save it either. Still, anyone who interacts with children at an early age has an opportunity - a gift to give. Language - whether the language of math, history, business, literature, science, or anything else - is a most human gift; with it, one can listen, one can speak.

That's what I'm passionate about. That's why I cry when I don't know how to help.

I want them to learn.

I want to give them wings.