A New Challenge

May 12, 2011

A New Challenge

Now that I’ve spent over six years getting my Bachelors and Masters degrees in English, you’d think I’d be all set to teach English, right?

I mean, that’s what my resume says I’m qualified for… and yet, I may have an opportunity to do something very different next year. For some reason, there’s a school that is interested in me for a 9th grade position to teach Government, Economics, and World Religion.  My first thought is, are you crazy?! It says English on my label! I never took Govt. or Econ. and never really missed it either. However, English jobs are not raining from the sky at the moment, so how can I turn down a school that is interested in me?

And then I remembered my first teaching job, right after I graduated college (in ENGLISH). I got hired four days before my start date and was asked to teach a Social Studies class on Africa and the Middle East– with no textbook and no pre-planned curriculum. I was stunned and terrified and completely engaged, and it was the most challenging and fascinating job I’ve ever had. I think I called my mom almost every day after school to tell her what I had taught and what my students had to say about it.

Suffice it to say that together my students and I learned so much that year, and I loved (almost) every minute of it. So can I translate that hunger for knowledge into an interest in government and economics? I’m definitely interested in world religions, but politics and money? The fact is, it’s a foot in the door at a great school. Should I trust my own potential and go for it, or hold out for an English opportunity?

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