Deciding to Teach

In March 2011, I was admitted to Teach For America. For the next week, I was an indecisive wreck. I called every mentor I had, I asked all…

In March 2011, I was admitted to Teach For America. For the next week, I was an indecisive wreck. I called every mentor I had, I asked all my friends what they would do, I spoke with current Corps Members, and I still ended up waking in a dead sweat — twice. Until then, I thought that only happened in movies.

Here’s what I was worried about, and what I think now:

Teaching will be hard

Yes. That was the best part. I grew more as a person in two years than I thought possible.

There are plenty of difficult activities that make you better for doing them. The problem is that they’re too easy not to complete (insert New Year’s resolution here). In TFA, I had no choice but to walk into the classroom every day, and my choice became to fail every day in front of 100 students or to put in the work to be a good teacher. And credit to TFA, they gave me the best practices I needed to get started and the critical feedback I needed to get better (thanks, Darin!).

Having a hard job early in life is a blessing. Putting in the preparation to make the next day go smoothly, being “on” for at least six hours a day keeping thirty students at a time engaged, and most importantly being in a position where the buck stopped with me all set me up for success in future roles. Learning how to determine what work is worth doing, how to recharge effectively, and how to get past perfectionism helped in life, too.

My career options will be limited

Having a variety of experiences early in my career was extremely valuable. It allowed me to experiment and find out what I care about, what I’m good at, and what environment I want to work in. I also realized these factors aren’t static, and that’s opened me up to career opportunities I wouldn’t have imagined in college.

As an added bonus, the network I built in TFA is extremely diverse in terms of discipline, opinions, backgrounds, and geographical region.

I will fall behind my peers

This is not worth worrying about. No one is actually keeping score, and you can’t actually keep score. And if you could keep score, envy would certainly subtract points.

Be happy, be kind, be present, work on things you think are important, spend time with people you care about, and stay healthy.

Ultimately, I’m proud of my decision to join Teach For America. It was an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone, flex skills that were not part of my college curriculum, and work directly on something important to me. I became aware of societal issues I was blind to growing up, and friends and I founded a nonprofit to address them. Even today I benefit from the amazing relationships I developed with students, families, friends, and colleagues over those two years.