After seven years of teaching, I will finally get to teach what I entered the teaching profession to teach, social studies and only social studies. I have talked about how my decision to be pragmatic pigeonholed me into subjects that I appreciated personally but disliked teaching. Now, more than two years after deciding to hold firm on what I wanted, I have reached my goal. It took changing schools and still holding firm but it happened.
When I first applied for the position at my current school, I did so both to leave the toxic work environment at my own school and to get into a social studies position. When I showed up at the interview, I learned that the position had morphed into one teaching both ELA and Social Studies. I still went for it because at long last I would finally get to teach social studies.
Then came the pandemic. Everything went topsy turvey almost overnight. I described before how my position changed multiple times within the weeks just prior to the start of the school year thanks to virtual school and the contrariness of a coworker. Even with all of that, I still got to teach social studies. It felt like my primary subject since I started my day teaching it and taught two classes of it as compared to only one of ELA.
My position for the upcoming school year remained ambiguous thanks, once again, to virtual school and the number of returning faculty and students. For a little while, the only place I slotted in was 8th grade ELA, a backward step basically. Along with the contention I felt amongst my grade level peers towards me, this motivated me to slowly, covertly, look for a position elsewhere. I knew that once I ended up back in ELA, I would get stuck again.
All the processes evolved slowly over some of the most stressful weeks of the school year. Waiting often is the hardest part. Ultimately though, all the pieces fell into place. I did apply and interview at one place although I had decided against taking that job just prior to them telling me they had chosen a different candidate. Then our instructional coach took a job as an assistant principal at another school, our 7th grade social studies teacher moved into the instructional coach position and then I moved into that position. Lastly, my fantastic student teacher will teach 8th grade ELA.
Over a decade after I obtained my teaching certificate, I can finally say that I teach social studies and social studies alone. No longer do I have to explain why I teach Spanish or ELA when I have two history degrees. Additionally, next year will mark the year with a single prep, the first time for me in 8 years of teaching. Some ahve jokingly asked what I will do with all that time. Trust me. I will find a way to fill it.