Looking through the Lens of a Teacher

We live in an interesting time right now. In my fourth-grade placement classroom, a nine-year-old asked me what kind of phone I had, to which he responded he had the latest one. We live in a time where seven-year-olds are growing up on the internet. Where babies are attracted to phone screens, and toddlers can work the screens without error. The world is connected completely. The people are connected completely. Social media is a lens into everyone's lives; hear people's thoughts, see screenshots into their life, communicate with those around the world in seconds. It is both the scariest thing we do each day and the greatest.

Because of social media, because of technology, I am able to communicate with educators in my class and around the world. In a way, the lens into their lives gives me a new reality that I would not have otherwise. Just the other day I said to a friend that this professional twitter that I had created was both the best and worst thing for my teaching career. On one side it lifted me up, gave me new ideas, made me think about the kind of educator I want to be, and sometimes, made me cry tears of joy at the uplifting videos that were shared. On the other side, people are honest. Sometimes brutally honest, they speak of their stress, anger, and disappointments of their job openly and make me question if I am doing the right thing with my life. Yet, I did not go into education blindly, and seeing the frustrations and stress of others makes me slow down and think hard about the why of my vocational goals in life.

Then, I see tweets like this:

I am tired. I am also pretty convinced that this job is one of the few truly important things I could do with my life. I am both those things. -Tom Rademache, eighth-grade Language Arts teacher

And I think, yes. Yes. I know this is the job for me because when I worked with four and five-year olds all summer and wanted to pull my hair out and cry somedays because no one listened and behavior was bad, I still miss them. I still think about them each day and long to go back and see how kindergarten is going for them. I know I am doing the right thing because I have been in a fourth-grade classroom for three months and I can not bear to think about having to say goodbye to those students so soon. Because those little humans that I knew for only a few months made such and impact on my life and I love them so hard, I can not think of anything I would rather do with my life.

So yes, I know it will be hard. I know most days I will be tired and stressed out with too much on my plate. But I also know that I will love those little human beings with everything I have in me. And then, I know it is also one of the few truly important things that I will do with my life.

The Professional Learning Network that I have created on Twitter has allowed me to connect with educators around the world. With educators I will never meet, and with teachers in my hometown that I looked up to when I was in their classroom. It also allows me to connect with my peers. Through this PLN I have shared and discussed the ins and outs of teaching, ideas for a classroom, and topics learned in class. It is a way for us to stay connected, for us to think about the same concepts as we sit in our rooms at night. A way for us to rally our voices together and create our own hashtag, our own Twitter chat, our own platform to discuss these goals and the knowledge and tools we have been given thus far to achieve them. For each one of my peers will likely be in a classroom teaching in just a few years, but for now, we embrace the time we have here. The time we have right now to sit and think about the why and how of our journey to be a teacher. And we communicate with each other through a like, a comment, or a student-created Twitter chat, about what our goals are for today, for tomorrow, and for years down the road. That’s all we can ask for really, a community where people understand. And if that community is found on social media, so be it. Let the screenshots into lives keep coming, for they do us all good in the end.