Afortunada

Below is my most recent entry for the Superintendent's Bi-Weekly Newsletter about the start of the new school year:

          As the school bells start to digitally ring in a new school year across North Carolina, I find myself struggling with mixed emotions about the year ahead.  I am eager for the upcoming year that is full of speaking engagements, school visits, and exciting opportunities (like meeting the President and going to Space Camp!), but I also find myself occasionally saddened and a little jealous as I hear about the hustle and bustle of the start of the school year for teachers across the state.  As the North Carolina Teacher of the Year, I am out of the classroom for the next year, and, perhaps more times than I should admit, I catch myself gazing longingly at pens, pencils, paper, markers, highlighters, staples, and other goodies that I would normally be purchasing at this time of the year.  I slightly envy Facebook posts of coworkers that show the finished projects they’ve completed in their own classrooms—a floral duct tape covered podium, a new seating arrangement, or a shiny Word Wall just waiting to have essential vocabulary words stapled to it.  I have even scheduled a day to go to Grimsley High School and help my coworkers put the final touches on their classrooms that will warmly greet high school students on August 26.

            When I think about the way I feel right now, I think I can best describe my emotions by saying that I feel like a bit of a contradiction.  I can best explain this contradiction through my recent experience traveling abroad in Spain and Morocco for much of August.  While in Spain for the wedding of a dear Spanish friend, I was frequently introduced in the following way (the introductions occurred in Spanish, so the following is a very loose translation): “This is Karyn.  She doesn’t speak Spanish very well, but she understands most of what you say. The airline lost her luggage and she is a vegetarian.  No, she does not eat fish, not even dolphin or tuna.  Pobrecita.”

           While the above introduction might seem rather unrelated to my new school year, it is surprisingly apt.  You see, I feel like I currently exist in a world of contradictions.  I am one thing, a teacher, but I am also another, a representative.  Much like the way most Spaniards could not understand my choice to be a vegetarian, I am now in an in-between position where it is sometimes hard to describe to others exactly what I will be doing for the next year.  Like my lost luggage (still lost after more than seven days), my past seven years as a teacher are so much a part of who I am that even though I am not presently in a traditional teaching position, those seven years are the personal belongings that define me.  Yet, unlike the ending of most of my introductions in Spain, “Pobrecita,” I do not feel like I am “unfortunate.”  Instead, I feel delighted to have the opportunity to expand my classroom beyond the four walls that are lined with posters of great authors and works of literature to the unlimited bounds of education in North Carolina.  This year will be incredibly different, but it will also be one of tremendous possibilities and opportunities.  It is a time when educators need a representative voice, and I hope to serve as that representative.  While I may not be decorating the four walls of my classroom at Grimsley High School this week, I am placing the finishing touches on speeches, researching changes to educational policy in our state, and planning and preparing for my upcoming school year, one in which I hope to learn and share just as much as I will teach.

"Teaching and Learning" in the School at La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain

I feel like my introduction upon my return from Spain to the United States as the new school year begins should be the following:  “This is Karyn Dickerson.  She loves education and wants to talk about it with others.  She is a teacher but she is not teaching in the classroom this year.  No, that does not mean she is not a teacher, it just means her classroom got a lot bigger.  Yes, she is also a student.  And a representative.  Afortunada.”    

Leaving Morocco and Ready to Embark on a New School Year and a New Journey