When I was a
little girl I used to play school with the neighborhood kids in my garage and I
was always the teacher. At the end of
the school year I would help my teacher clean her classroom with the sole
purpose of getting all the worksheets she had not used that year. I used these worksheets in my pretend school
and I got so good at it, that parents started to pay me to teach their kids
during the summer. Every summer my little
garage school would open and the neighborhoods kids would attend. During those hot days in the garage with kids
sitting on paint cans and doing work on their laps, my dream began of one day
being the head of the class. I hadn’t
met anyone who had gone to college other than the people who taught me in
elementary, so as tangible as this dream became in the summers, for a girl from
the barrio it was a dream unreachable like the stars.
I remember my own
cousins would ask me why I tried so hard in school. My aunt, God bless her soul, even told me
once, “You shouldn’t try so hard because you’re just going to get pregnant and
drop out of high school and all that work for nothing.” Yet, my mother (with only a second-grade
education) nurtured my dreams, she told me to keep my head-up and for as long as
she was alive she would fight for me to accomplish the things I wanted in
life. She took me on countless
university tours and told me how proud she would be when I got into one of
them. Yet, I felt like maybe the naysayers
were right maybe college was not for someone like me. The “keep-out” sign glared the closer I got
to college. Yet, sophomore year in my high school English class I was handed a book that transformed my life, The
House on Mango Street. Up until that point, I didn’t know Mexican people
wrote novels in English and this particular writer was writing in a voice that
matched my own. A girl from the hood
that hated her ugly house and wanted more than what the barrio gave her. I knew her, she was me and I too wanted out-
to go as far away and write my own stories.
Then something happened, I became Esperanza or maybe she was me all
along and I knew that if I wanted it with hard work and more importantly the
courage to travel where no one had traveled before I could accomplish my
dreams.
The night before I
transferred to university I cried and had a panic attack so big that I thought
maybe I didn’t have the courage to leave my comfortable surroundings, but like
the lioness that she has always been, my mother encouraged me and helped me
find a friend. This friend gave me a tour
of the school on my first day and I as toured the campus with her as she showed
me where all my classes were- again I gained the momentum to continue carving
paths and eventually graduating. Then I
went into the combined Masters and Teaching Credential Program and by the age
of twenty-five I was teaching.
Throughout my college career I worked part-time. I taught preschool from the age of eighteen
and I did that for four years realizing that while those little guys are
awfully cute little children was not the age group that I wanted to continue
teaching. So then, as I neared my
credential I became a Substitute Teacher.
I was one class away from completing my
Masters in Education, but was advised to wait to get hired by a district before
I completed the class. The rational was that districts hired teachers with BA’s
more often than teachers with MA degrees.
Then my life took a double hit my brother (who was my best friend)
committed suicide and soon after I became undone and was diagnosed for the
second time as bipolar. Losing someone
in such a hard way and for the first time in my life experiencing a loss so
close rattled my life- it was too much and my mind spiraled out of control. I began hearing voices and hallucinating. I had to leave teaching and take a year off
while doctors tried to find medications that would help my extreme bipolar
symptoms. When I recovered and was ready
to take a job, I was told to go back slowly meaning taking a low paying job
that had little to no stress. While I
was glad that I was in control of my mind again- it was a huge blow to not be
able to do what I had worked so hard to accomplish. Maybe all the naysayers were right, maybe all
that hard work was pointless.
My brother, may
God rest his soul, led me out of the
valley of death and into the hands of God.
My faith taught me humility and I began a job in the mortgage industry
making copies - a position as low on the food chain as possible. Slowly my confidence began to rebuild and so
did my career. Afraid that going back
into teaching would cause me to lose my mental capabilities I just moved up in the
mortgage world and tried to get teaching out of my mind. After almost ten years my company relocated
to Texas and I decided to remain in California and give teaching a try. I was thinking of teaching at a juvenile
detention center where the classroom size is smaller to help with my
disability. Then I heard back and was
hired with Opportunities for Learning Charter Schools and I found myself
working with at risk students that are failing out of high school with huge
credit deficiencies and I found my niche.
I love my job!
This past year has
been one of redemption. After fearing
that teaching would push me off the deep end again, I found a place where I
work with a small student population, but because they are tougher kids it does
come with its frustrations. My English
classroom size in terms of traditional instruction at one time is twenty-kids
or less. When I am not in front of a
classroom, I have a light load of students that I work with on unit packets in
all content areas. These students
I meet once a day for a couple hours, usually only four at a time. So, working in smaller groups and only having
to teach in front of a classroom two or three times a week is the perfect way
for a person with bipolar to teach. Once I found my groove I decided to
complete my Masters in Education even though it had been over ten years. I talked with National University
representatives and was approved to return and complete my last class.
I never imagined
that I would be completing my last class and my degree during quarantine. Yet, this whole process has given me the time
to reflect back on my journey and in doing so a spirit of gratitude towards all
the people who have helped me get here and of course God has overtaken my
soul. I have loved traveling into the past,
reflecting on the present and looking into the future as an educator. I am constantly amazed by the life I am
living, thanks be to God.
