Reasons for Teaching

I am excited to kick off the 2019 edition of the "NC Ed Leaders Summer Blog Series" with an inspiring post from Emily Francis, an English as a Second Language teacher at Concord High School in Concord, North Carolina. As she shares in her post, Emily’s journey to become an educator was likely different than most. Her experience as an English Language Learner inspired her to become an ESL teacher, giving her a deep understanding of the challenges her students must overcome to find success.

Emily earned her B.A. in Spanish and her M.A.T. in E.S.L from UNC-Charlotte, and she serves as a professional development facilitator and motivational speaker in addition to teaching. She is also a member of the Carolinas TESOL Board and Team Member of Confianza LLC. Emily was named Cabarrus County Teacher of the Year in 2016 and she is an excellent follow on Twitter. Enjoy the first post of the 2019 NC Ed Leaders Summer Blog Series from Emily Francis!

When I started my teaching career (15 years ago), my mother gave me a hanging sign that reads “3 Reasons for Teaching - June, July, August.” I hang on to it just because my mother gave it to me; however, you’ll never see this sign in my classroom because summer breaks are not my "reasons for teaching."

Now, don’t take me wrong, I love summer breaks and I always take full advantage to recharge and refresh before the start of another school year. But as good as summer breaks might be, they’re NOT my reasons for teaching.

My Why
The path to the teaching profession was not an ordinary path for me. I immigrated to the United States at the age of 15 years old. I started high school with the hopes and desire to graduate and go to college to be the teacher I’ve always wanted to be. From day one, I embraced school and education. Breaking all sorts of barriers, I was able to learn the English language and get all the required credits for graduation. But unfortunately, everything fell apart when I failed the American History Regents exam. With disappointment and a heart in a million pieces, I took the bus home and never went back. In 1997, I became part of the Latino high school dropout.

Failing at school made me question everything I believed I knew about myself. I started working as a cashier and every time I scanned an item the beep was a constant reminder of my failure. I didn’t believe I was capable to do anything else.

Years later I decided to rewrite my personal narrative by returning to school. I found a local community college and obtained my GED. I went on from there to find success in college, first earning an Associate’s degree, then a Bachelor’s degree, and finally my Master’s degree. Today, I am where I need to be: inspiring students every day to reach their highest potential. You see, I had potential within me all along. What I didn’t have was someone who believed in me; someone in my corner encouraging me to find my passion and help me fulfill my human potential. I strive to be an educator who will be for my students what I didn’t always have: someone to believe in them.

So, if you ask me what my reason for teaching is, I would say it is INSPIRING MY STUDENTS TO KNOW THEIR POTENTIAL and PURPOSE.

Professional Passion
Our experiences, our potential, and our purpose are the source and core for our professional passion. We need to maintain a burning passion for what we do in order to inspire our students. We cannot expect our students to tap into their highest potential and follow their passion when we ourselves are not passionate about our profession. Of course, if you are reading this, I have no doubt that you are passionate about what you do, otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be reading this post!

Having a very clear understanding of who we are meant to be for our students should drive our intentional efforts to maintain a burning professional passion. These intentional efforts could be very simple but effective to reinforce our WHY:

Engage with other "eduheroes": Engaging with other educators with a shared passion and vision contributes to developing experiences that keep our passion burning. There are many ways to engage with other educators. One way I’ve found to be helpful is participating in Twitter chats. I don’t participate every day, but I’ve tried to be consistent on one or two. We are always discussing topics of interest, not just educational but also personal. If you are interested, check out this link with a ton of educational chats and find the one that fits you best.

Read, Read, and Keep Reading: If you are a passionate reading, good for you. If you’re not - it is time to grab a great book! Reading and learning from other passionate educators can help validate what you already feel and do for your profession, and this feeling is like no other. It’s like a tap on our shoulder for doing greatness without someone telling us what/how to do it. If you’re interested in titles to get you started, I just finished reading Relentless: Changing Lives by Disrupting the Educational Norm by Hamish Brewer, a nationally recognized principal in Virginia.

Reading and learning can also provide the tools we need to empower ourselves and find within us our highest potential to better serve our students and school.

Focus on the objective: I have no doubt in my mind as to what our job as educators is. Our job is to know our content, teach it to our students, and support their learning so they are successful individuals in our society. However, if this and only this is my focus in the teaching profession, then I’ve missed the biggest objective in our profession...to INSPIRE students. Our purpose goes beyond knowing what to teach to how and to whom we are teaching. Our profession’s objective, and where our focus should be, is in lasting relationships that inspire students to discover their own potential to be the world-changers our society needs today!

What’s Your Why?
So now, I ask you as I close...

*What are your reasons for teaching?

*Do you know your potential?

*What’s YOUR purpose?

*What’s your WHY?

See, you have to believe that as educators we have the most amazing opportunity every day to uplift lives and help students find their own purpose and own passion.

Keep your fire burning and let's never stop believing and embracing the responsibility we have to protect and inspire our students’ own potential and burning passion.

Emily Francis is an English as a Second Language teacher at Concord High School in Concord, North Carolina. Emily can be found on Twitter @emilyfranESL.