This post was written by 起点传媒member Kristen Bruck, a member of the current cohort of participants in the 听
I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a teacher, but if you had told me when I was a听teenager that I would one day be a high school English teacher, I wouldn鈥檛 have believed you.听While I had always loved to read and learn, I didn鈥檛 really care for school鈥攚hich is exactly why I wanted to become a听teacher. I loved working with kids, and I wanted to make my classroom a place where they听could enjoy learning, want to read, and use their voices to make the world a better place.
When I look back at these reasons, it actually makes perfect sense that I ended听up teaching high school English, but when I started on my journey as a teacher, majoring in听English didn鈥檛 even cross my mind. 听As a first-year education major, I had to observe both an elementary and a secondary classroom for a few weeks. I went into that semester sure that I wanted to teach in an elementary school, but I left with the realization that secondary was the place for me. I chose Social Studies as my subject area because I had recently taken an American History class and had a teacher who taught history as people鈥檚 stories, not just dates and places to memorize. I knew I wanted to be that kind of teacher鈥攐ne who connected history and our world to each individual student.
I graduated and was lucky enough to start my first permanent position the following year,听teaching seventh-grade World Geography and eighth-grade American History. I quickly learned that there was so much more to teaching kids than just presenting material and听following up with assessments.
Many of my students could not read the assignments I gave them, but I had no idea how to help them. Nothing in my teacher preparation program provided me with strategies for struggling readers or writers.
So after one year, I went back to school to get my Master鈥檚 Degree as a Reading Specialist. I didn鈥檛 intend to leave Social Studies, I just wanted the expertise to better help the students in my classroom. But Life happens . . . and a semester prior to finishing my Master鈥檚, my son was born. Deciding that full-time teaching alongside full-time motherhood was not for me, I resigned from my public school position and found an adjunct position as a reading professor at a local community college.
Suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly, I was a reading teacher.
And what I found was that teaching reading and teaching social studies are really not that different. We were still discussing history, geography, sociology and the like, but doing it along with strategies for comprehension and communication鈥攁nd this time, I knew how to help the students comprehend the content. After a few years, thinking of how much I enjoyed public school teaching, I took the Secondary English Praxis Exam, and by 2016, fifteen years after starting as a social studies teacher, I had officially made the switch to the English department in a public school, where I鈥檝e been ever since.
Life holds surprises for us sometimes. My journey has taught me several things, like how important it is for teachers to continue to learn and grow.听While I never would have predicted that I鈥檇 end up teaching 10th-grade English, it is truly the perfect position for me as a teacher.
It鈥檚 made me realize how important it is for all teachers to look for additional professional learning, to be ready for the surprises and opportunities in our futures. In addition, I鈥檝e learned that whether we teach English, Science, Social Studies, or Math, we all need to know how to help students use literacy skills in our subject areas.
We are all learning and growing, and we are ALL literacy teachers.
Kristen Bruck teaches tenth-grade English at the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts听in Bethlehem, Pennyslvania and is a member of the current cohort of participants in the 听She previously taught seventh- and eighth-grade social studies in the Pennridge School District听in Perkasie, Pennsylvania and reading support classes at Northampton Community College in听Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.