Silence prevails. I sit
In front of a screen:
window or cave (I can't decide which) -
contemplating myself.

I love English - the words, the sounds, the feel of pages and the smell of books. Does that mean that I will make a good teacher of English language arts? -- No, of course not. I also love science fiction movies, but chances are that I will never visit the Delta Quadrant. On the other hand, I firmly believe that in order to teach anything, one has to know what s/he is talking about - I know English (I even have the degree to prove it!). My knowledge combined with my love does not necessarily mean that I will be a good teacher either, but it certainly helps. J

I want to teach. If I didn't, I guess I would be in the wrong place right about now, but that isn't what I mean. I don't mean that I want to be a teacher (anyone can be a teacher - it requires little skill, all you have to do is to show someone how to replicate what you do). No, I want to teach - to convey and facilitate students' connection with meaning. I want to help other people to feel like I did when I first set foot onto the fourth floor of the Queen Elizabeth II Library at MUN. I had never seen so many books in one place: I stood there, motionless at one end of the gargantuan room and stared down the seemingly endless isle of books that stretched from the floor to twice my height - it was one of the only times that I ever remember knowing what it means to be in awe of something. It wasn't the size of the room, it wasn't the quantity of books . . . it was the knowledgee that was literally set out in front of me. I remember walking along, feeling the edges of the books with my hand as it glided over them - I still do this from time to time. I believe that I can help others to understand what literature means - to appreciate it, if only in some small way, for what it is. I sit in classrooms everyday and listen as people spew crap out of their mouths about things that they don't really understand - they fumble over terminology and definitions and concepts, but they never just stop for a moment or two and think. Too often do I find myself wishing that sometime, somewhere along the way, someone will reveal a point to what s/he is driving at but very few do. Why? -- Because they don't understand what literature means.

Literature means more than being able to define things like onomatopoeia - I never once claimed to know what post-modernism really is (I don't even think that post-modernists know what post-modernism is). Literature means more than anything that someone could put a label/tag/definition on, and my own limited understanding of it is that it is the connection with text that I experience when I read/view it. A book on a shelf is not literature, it is merely a bunch of paper and ink until I read it (or at least someone does). And that reading has to be more than scanning through the Telegram, it has to be both intimate and something to be shared (hence my enthusiasm for literature circles). Once, I had the honor of shaking the hand of Earl B. Pilgrim. This is an experience that I value more than anyone could ever imagine - not simply because he is an accomplished writer, but because through his writing, he spoke to me in a way that I can only attempt to explain using words. Meeting the creator, the facilitator of the experience I had reading Will Anyone Search for Danny? and the conversations I now have with my father about that book, was for lack of a more powerful phrase: profound. Perhaps just as profound is the feeling that I got when I bought Curse of the Red Cross Ring and had Mr. Pilgrim sign it: To Andy Ivany, Merry Christmas 2000, Earl B. Pilgrim; that is, I had (and took) the opportunity to share this feeling with my father.

Just as Earl B. Pilgrim was the facilitator of my experience with his writing, so do I want to be a facilitator of students' experiences with literature. I am not naïve enough to think that every student I teach will experience literature the way that I do; indeed, I doubt that many will - but there will be some. That is why I want to teach; I truly feel that I will be able to reach students, even those that I watched being overlooked by my teachers in high school (my younger brother being one of them) because they were seemingly lost causes. Today, my brother doesn't read for pleasure, but he does do many other activities like watch movies, and his ability to interrogate video-texts is astounding.

What qualities, then, do I possess that make me suited and ready for and English language arts teaching position? Well, as for being ready, I don't feel that I am - there seems to be too much to learn before I can ever hope to teach. I guess that this comes partly from my being nervous (inasmuch as I get nervous) about stepping across the line into the realm of being a teacher rather than an student. But I think that if I wasn't a little apprehensive/excited (call it what we will), then I would have something to be worried about. As for my qualifications, they are hanging on my living room wall.