Today I had a conversation with one of the editors from Toronto Life magazine. She was interested in an idea I had pitched…but wanted some clarity. And by the end of our 30 minute chat so did I.
“So you left your job…why exactly? Like were you mad at someone?”
“Well no. I just needed more intellectual space to think and write - creative freedom, you know?”
Blank stare. “Ok.”
The conversation left me feeling very vulnerable and misunderstood. The pitch I had submitted was clear and (I believed!) clever, but by the end of our Google meet I felt anything but. It’s not that I feel in any way unsure about my decision to leave public education behind, but I do feel like explaining the “why” behind my exit is not easily translatable.
Philosopher Immanuel Kant spent upwards of 12 years writing his seminal (and importantly criticized) work Critique of Pure Reason. As a reader and writer of educational philosophy, I think I need to take a page out of such a book. I should give myself permission to take my time as I work towards the right words to answer big questions. My exit is not just about leaving one sort of classroom behind. It’s also about learning to listen to new voices. Reading new stories. Talking to others who, like me, see themselves as lifelong learners, waiting for life’s asynchronous lessons to start.
I happen upon some of life’s most thought provoking lessons in my kitchen. Usually I cook in silence, pondering the day’s many interactions, and by the time the meal is ready to serve I’ve come to something — not necessarily deep or life changing, but a thought wasp or two have, at the very least, been swatted away.
But the question posed to me today by the Toronto Life editor has directed my eye upward to a large wasp nest that will take a while to cut down. I have to be ok without having satisfying answers to offer when someone asks me why. I would have told my teacher candidates not to get caught up in needing to know the answers to student questions. “The bravest and most honest way is to learn with them,” I’d say.
So now I need to practice what I have preached. I have to learn as I go: trusting my ability to reason through what’s new (to me) and challenge what I always thought I knew (of the world, of teaching and of learning).
My writer sister writes here and our podcast can be found here - all work that is beyond Good Enough in your own edifying journey. Learn with me!