Teacher Journals: Leah

"Leah Ruben"

The idea of teaching has been quietly in my mind since the first time I worked as a writing tutor, in high school. I didn't consider it consciously then, but the possibility hovered around everything else I did. I knew very little about how to teach--it was a mystery to me how you could ever know what to do with a room full of students. Nevertheless, I suspected that I would love it.

I already knew that I loved writing and reading, however; so, as an undergraduate at Brown, I became an English concentrator. I explored language and literature and how to make things with words. I read, and read, and read, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote. Then, as part of that exploration, I became a Writing Fellow (a peer writing tutor), and everything changed: I found that it was possible to learn how to teach.

This discovery took nothing away from my love of writing – in fact, it lent dimension to the role of writing in my life. Suddenly, writing and teaching began to feed off each other. Each enhanced the other. Each gave meaning to the other. As teaching became less mysterious to me, I discovered that, like writing, it was something you could discuss and analyze and develop for the whole rest of your life.

All of these things were a bit scary to me – neither writing nor teaching seemed very stable, since they both necessarily changed all the time. In addition, I felt very strongly that I could not teach until I felt prepared to do so – until I had some idea of what I was doing, or at least had some theory to draw from. Therefore, to focus on writing and still support myself, I decided to work in publishing when I graduated from Brown.

Copy editing and then production editing full-time for three years was a different kind of writing immersion, and I learned what happens when the rote aspects of a trade become second nature – I felt grounded enough in writing to take more risks in my own work, and that was a gift I could come by in no other way. I also learned, however, that although I had gained a lot in the corporate world, I wanted a job that felt differently worthwhile. The goals of the company I worked for didn't inspire me, even though I enjoyed editing. I wanted to work from a place of passion – I wanted to really believe in what I was trying to accomplish. It was finally time for me to turn, consciously, to teaching.

I applied to three different teacher ed programs. In the end, I decided to come to HGSE for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was its focus on urban, public education, which no other program seemed to do. As I considered my options, I realized that this focus was extremely important to me because it told me that, even if we didn't solve the problems of the world in this program, we would at least be talking about them. All the time.

I knew that we would talk about race and class and privilege and difference and the social structure of this country. I knew that, even if the conversations weren't supremely productive, they would at least be happening. I thought that this approach would help me avoid accidentally reproducing society in my classroom and that I would begin to know how to make consciously every single decision there was to be made.

Although I'm not sure how close I'll be able to come to this goal, that is at least the purpose behind a lot of what we do here. Even when our work is not perfect (and how could it be?), teaching, as they keep telling us, is a human endeavor. It will never be perfect. That's why it's a goal and process that I can see myself pursuing for the rest of my life.

For the moment, I am getting to know the culture and the students in the high school where I'm interning. I already feel different than I was when I started here in June. Teaching during the summer component was more tentative for me, although even the beginning and the end of the six weeks felt completely different from each other. At the beginning I felt like I had entered an alien environment with boulders for landscape; at the end, I began to understand who I was in that context and that the context was not as alien as it seemed. I had gotten to know the kids. And it was at the end of the six weeks that I saw how much more work there was to do, and I was ready to invest in it. Now, in my new school, where I'll be all year, I get that opportunity. Leading a class, though, is still no easy thing. I get nervous every time.