Pages are pages... Missives of Paper and Purpose

Teachers are collectors of stories. These stories become part of our own personal libraries, housed deep within our brains and hearts, on shelves of folders filled with handmade cards and printed emails. The individual pages of each volume are marked with the transcription of a memory, an interaction, or a lingering emotion that for some particular reason made an impact on us. These tomes of experiences are what life gifts us at the end of a day, a year, a decade, a career. More often than not, these pages of thought are reflected upon in solitude.

We run the gamut of genres as teachers; taking part in our own daily fictions, narratives, and fantasies. We become authors, playwrights, and editors for ourselves and students, but do not often get to be the one who truly appreciates the work of art that we have created, and lived, by leading a teacherly life.

In my experience, the Teaching Fellowship at Hackley is like a book circle. It is a space to commune, share experiences, and learn from others who may have read the book before but are now looking for a new take or are choosing to read it due to the hype it has created. It is a place to ask questions, challenge beliefs, and consider that closely held ideas about the shared book “Of Teacherly Life” may have been a mix of a tad right or a pinch of wrong. It is a group of fellow teacher travelers, some new and some not-soaged, learning about perspective and how to communicate from different experiences.

The path in finding what is at the heart of teaching was laid bare at my feet in the fall of 2019, when I was diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer, invasive ductal carcinoma, stage 3. I was 39. I found the lumps on my own; at diagnosis there was a 3 cm mass in my breast, which had also spread to my axillary lymph nodes, measuring as an additional 4 cm mass. I have no family history of cancer in any form, and I do not fit the demographic.

On my last day before going on medical leave at winter break, I sat with colleagues trying to work out the upcoming Admissions mini-visit events. Fighting through tears, I said to them, “Please just don’t leave me out of the loop when I’m on leave. I need this. I need my normal.” That was when I realized that what I loved about my profession, which was my life, is the personal connection with others. The idea that I was now on a path that no one else could travel with me was unbelievably scary; coupled with all the unknowns of how my illness and treatment would affect my two young sons (at the time they were four and seven), my marriage, and my own longevity.

When I came back to work in the fall of 2020 and the opportunity of being a mentor was presented, I jumped at the chance. Having lived as a public and private school educator, I have the deep belief that at the core of being a good teacher is the ability to create connections and explore experiences. It is not one system over another, one program or teaching approach. It’s everything, but at the right time. Coming back to campus with new eyes was refreshing—being grateful for the beauty around me, love for all the students and colleagues, and being prepared to take on life in a different way than just framing my days through curriculum and literacy groups. I knew that I had something to share with newer teachers in a way that I wish had been offered to me when I was first starting out. Being prepared can look very different from one human to another; however, the thread that binds the collective is arriving at each student with an open heart, a desire to meet them where they are, and to walk the path with them. This is the same with the Teaching Fellowship.

In reviewing fellows’ resumes in application to the program, I was blown away by their experiences. The service-learning, the internships, their own personal beliefs about why they wanted to teach. They are all so accomplished! I find it so interesting that so many