Inside Perspective: First Year Teacher

I look down. There's a sweet girl with huge blue eyes looking at me. She says, "I can't do this." She is struggling to read the word "the". A word that seems simple to most and one that we have learned and gone over and over. I know she has to know it. I know that somewhere behind her ocean colored eyes, the word "the" is swimming in her head.

"You do know it. I know you do! Believe in yourself!" I reassure her and more importantly, myself.

"You got to know it when you see it! T-H-E spells ....(long pause) THE!" She uses the cheer that we have done in order to remember those little tricky words that every child needs to know in order to read. The difference with this child is that she is in second grade. The tide slowly recedes and gives way to a smile.

She, just like all my other students, struggles to read. She is about 3 years behind the rest of her peers. She feels as though she will never be able to read or understand the things that her other friends do. I know the feeling...

I never really struggled with anything in school. School didn't take much effort or hard work. But this, this is the hardest thing I have ever done. This is waking up before the sun rises and leaving after it sets. This is trying everyday to convince kids who have been told over and over that they can't that they can and will. This is listening to a 6 six year old tell you about his meth addicted mother.

This is teaching.

This is not what I expected..... I graduated from college and decided that I wanted to do something meaningful. I wanted to do something bigger and better then grad school. I looked into the Peace corp, not for me, I really do enjoy indoor plumbing. I decided teaching in a low income area was a better fit (after all they have toilets.) I packed up my belongings and moved across the country. I was a wide-eyed, naïve college graduate. I was excited and ready to make a difference in the world. (Isn't that everyone's dream?)

Teaching, though, is hard. Teaching students who have special needs, is even harder. I was prepared for the long, hard hours, but I wasn't prepared for a broken system. I wasn't prepared for a system that claims to give children an individual education, yet makes it impossible for teachers to do so. I wasn't prepared for having to fight and advocate for my students. I wasn't ready to answer my students' questions about why the world was so unfair to them. I couldn't answer why they didn't have enough money to buy things that they wanted or needed. I couldn't answer questions of why they couldn't see their families back in Mexico. The only thing I could do was teach them the best way I could the foundations of reading and math. The only questions I could answers where those of how do I spell this or what is 2 + 5?

I do not teach for myself or for America , I teach for my 16 students. My 16 students who I believe in and who more importantly, believe in me. They have taught me much more than I have taught them. When my two year commitment is over, I will leave the classroom. I will walk away from teaching, but not from my students and not as the same person that came in to the classroom a year ago. I will walk away knowing that children all over America are being left behind by our broken education system. This something that needs to and can be changed one big blue eyed girl at a time.

Marlena Afonso is a first year kindergarten through fourth grade special education teacher in Arizona.