Doing What You Love – Loving What You Do
by Susan Fleming The beginning was not a noble one, it was born of desperation and a severe need for a job. Plans had been neatly laid out in my brain; those plans were crumbling to dust. Never destined to be a Fine Arts major, I had done a back door major in drama. How was that done? It seems that a Secondary Education major in English, minoring in Speech would do the trick for me. Since I had set my goal on teaching in college, the education courses had to have some significance. A secondary area at the time consisted of grades seven through twelve. It's an important thing that you observe the promise I made myself. I would never teach seventh or eighth grade. Upon graduation, I began my tromp through the application process. Since my practice teaching had been in a volunteer project in the deep Appalachian mountains, I was seeking employment in these closed communities. Not being hired and being told that they would give me the worst classes if I had the nerve to show up or they wanted me to teach some oddball class that I was not certified to teach had been a brick wall I had not expected. Over the years of being in college and being friends with people in my rural neighborhood, the neighbors informed me, “They're hiring in Murray County.” Bless Daddy, he was so excited he volunteered to drive me to the wilds of North Georgia to “check on” a job. So that you will know, I was not hired for my stellar qualifications of having a degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, these people were desperate. Walking into the tiny Central Office building, I informed the secretary that I wanted an application. From the recesses of the building a male voice hollered, “Can you teach English?”
Answering the disembodied voice, in a very unprofessional manner, I hollered back, “Yes.” The second booming question, “Can you teach seventh grade?” Having been taught not to prevaricate, I swallowed deeply and once more hollered back, “Yes.” The voice yelled again, “You're hired! Rachel, give her an application.” Notice, on day one, I had broken my promise to myself. It seems I was going to teach in a junior high school in a rural North Georgia county. Stumbling out to the car I sat stunned beside Daddy. “I got a job,” I muttered. Not at all what I meant to do and not at all a grade I wanted to teach. What the hell had just happened to me? The grand plan was that I would drive from my family home every day to teach in the next state. Only a thirty-minute drive and since I had no money and no car, I had to be flexible. My letter for Pre-Planning was late so I missed the first day and was dressed wrong for the second day. All of the people there got a good laugh about “Our Miss Brooks” being late and not dressed for a day of work. Have your ever prayed that a crack in the floor would open and swallow you? I used up all my prayers that day. I was the new kid on the block and had two strikes against me. It was certainly a day for mixing metaphors. My teaching supplies for the year were a new box of chalk and a new eraser. My companion grade level teacher was a person from the county and the darling, it appeared, of the staff. Her books were carried in, the desks arranged and her room set up. I received some mysterious commands about the empty science room on hall two. She and I were to decide who would teach grammar and who would teach literature. I don't know how I lucked out on this, -104
