It was in my 3rd year of teaching that I would thoroughly enjoy going to work. That is because I taught ,my favorite cohort of students to date this year. These students inspired me to always do my best. Luckily, I was testing new management strategies this year that happened to work. This was the year I started my sarcastic cynical teaching personality while simultaneously being mean and strict. For some reason, it worked. I think going from a personality of being “nice” to a personality of being sarcastic worked for me, because it was more genuine and authentic.
It helped that I only taught one prep this year, being 7th grade history class, where I started developing unique and creative lessons accommodated for the students. The students genuinely wanted to learn this year and mostly all had intrinsic motivation to do well, while still having unique and interesting personalities. It’s no surprise that this would be the year I would start writing letters to all my students numerous times.
My advisory was also fantastic at the time, and we made a lot of fun memories doing Reading Counts, playing Billboard videos, playing Mafia, Reciting the Bright Star Creed (Smash Mouth’s All Star), and doing random things that the kids loved. Including wearing Bunny ears.
This was the year I started Builder’s Club, and I had the free time to do community service projects almost every weekend in Los Angeles. The kids loved going around and doing various things to help Los Angeles, which included cleaning, reading, and organizing.
This was also the year I made friends with many of the teachers at the school, many of whom I still talk to on a weekly basis. It wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t have the common struggle of RKMS to bond over. Working in the trenches made our connections stronger, much like veterans who struggle from PTSD.
I’m not sure I’ll ever teach a class so special and hard-working but that remains to be seen.
My goals for the year were still to get a teaching job in Orange County (I failed), and to get a girlfriend (also failed). That summer I took the opportunity of freedom to go travel in Europe with some former friends from Cram. It was a great experience, and presented some wonderful views and heights, matching the best (so far) of my teaching experience.
That summer (2017), my friend Bijan Fazeli asked me to volunteer at Anime Expo. I decided to do so on a random whim, not expecting much out of it. His department was full, and so I was placed in the Registration department where I helped check in attendees. I made a few friends out of the experience, but it wasn’t anything special for me. And yet, it would be a stepping stone towards a surprise future.
