The Journey Begins

So… if you’re a teacher in New Jersey you pretty much fall into three categories these days. 1) The Veteran Teacher: You sport a holiday pin on every holiday (including your favorite sequin santa you got from the mother’s charity league.) You refuse to give up your chalk for a nice red EXPO marker and are solely responsible for the 50,000 new teachers who can’t get a job because you won’t retire. 2) The Lucky Teacher: You’re fresh out of college and still living with your parrents. Your mom’s cousin’s gynecologist’s aunt just happens to be on the school board and got you the job. You do a mediocre job, at best, and you blow your pay check on booze. 3) The Urban Teacher: You’ve had a few sub. jobs and you continue to struggle to find employment. Out of the one hundred resumes you sent out, you finally land one interview. You feel fortunate to even get an interview and you show up in your brand new suit, even though the school smells like mold and you’re pretty sure the building was a K-Mart last fall.

Yup, that’s me--# 3. My name’s Ms. MacKenzie, Ms Mac for short. After two years of various dead-end teaching positions, last summer I was hired in an urban district in New Jersey. When I got the call, my initial thought was “Didn’t anyone else apply?” Let’s face it- I’m a 5’2’’ 110lb, private-school-educated, white girl with the voice of a meek third grader- and you hire me to teach inner city eighth graders? Sure, my credentials were impeccable. I was a great teacher. All I needed were kids to teach. It was like a death wish. But hey, I had a job and more importantly, I had my very first classroom to decorate…

“This is it.” My supervisor said as he showed me to my classroom/closet.
“It’s pink.” I said/asked. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with the color pink. Actually it’s one of my faves. However, this wasn’t your average pink. It was more like an 80’s mauve. All that was missing was a flower boarder around the top of the walls about a foot from the ceiling and some white wicker furniture. Was this really my classroom or was this a bad joke? I couldn’t help but wonder as I took a closer look. It was more like a French rose pink, I decided. Whatever. It was mine. I was going to teach 8th graders in my tiny pink room if it killed me and trust me, it almost did.