The Teacher

  I am a teacher. I teach pre-kindergarten down in the Bronx, New York. I've waited a long time to get back in the classroom. It has been a struggle to get to this point in my life. But I am ready now, to change, this year, to reinvent myself physically, mentally and spiritually. My name is Jaime Garzon and I, just like any other graduate student, believed it would be easy to find a teaching job when I graduated. This was back in 2009.

  Emails were sent, resumes were faxed, mailed, delivered in any way possible. Applications were filed. I couldn't find work. Not in a classroom.

  In May of 2010, my wife and I announced to the family, at a mother's day dinner at my sister's place, that we were expecting. With the road to parenting being paved before us, it was time for me to turn talk into action. I attended a job fair in Brooklyn and found out that Maryland was looking for teachers.

  By July of 2010, some friends and my parents were helping Mari and I move to Annapolis, Maryland. I was scheduled to begin my voyage into the field of education in late August. I was hired to teach 3rd grade at Jessup Elementary School. Who knew I was headed for the high seas, with rain, darkness and storms to fight against?

    I lasted until April of 2011 before I resigned. It wasn't my students. I loved them, a bunch of lower class misfits from the poorest neighborhoods in Howard County and Army brats, some of them, because Fort Meade was right in the neighborhood. They all tried, they all worked hard, and so, I, in turn, tried to work hard for them. But it was my boss, the principal, a Black woman named Ava Tasker-Mitchell, that made my life hell. She was so data driven and so demanding and so reluctant to provide support to all of her first year teachers. Some of the things she said; the way she treated me, I had no chance of making it at that school.

  Let me backtrack a little. In December of 2010, on a snowy afternoon, the school got a phone call from my wife right as I was about to start on bus duty. The office let me know she called and I was ready to run for the doors when my principal said that I couldn't leave until bus duty was over. My wife was in labor; my son was on his way. I had close to an hour's drive to Annapolis and here I was, being held back by the drill sergeant. Even my assistant principal looked at her with crazy eyes. He waved me off and I made my way down the snow covered highway and got my wife to Anne Arundel Medical Center in what seemed like a blur of time in fast forward. At the hospital, she was checked in and then it was the waiting game. Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours. I was asleep when our son decided to enter the world. My wife began having contractions about midnight and she was so tough, so brave, she never screamed, she just kept her cool. It must have been around 2:30 in the morning when she finally started giving birth to our son. I held her hand and she pushed hard, moaning and groaning but keeping it together. The doctor helped her and I watched her push, take a break, push, take a break. There was a big push and then I saw the head of our baby boy. Soon, he was in my arms, our bundle of joy and a reason to keep moving forward, putting aside the obstacles in our way.

  In September of 2011, I was back in the classroom. I got a job working as a substitute teacher for Frederick County Public Schools. It was one particular school and, more specifically, one group of kids from a 5th grade class, that made me realize I was in the right field. They helped me see that teaching was fun and helped me to remember why I got into the profession. Even though I was hitting some bumps in the road, it was my job to keep moving forward. They were a great class and I took every opportunity to be their substitute teacher. They were more than students; I saw them as friends and I became their mentor, their role model, someone who cared about them and their success, in and out of the classroom.

  The field of education is competitive and it is hard to land a job as a full time elementary school teacher. You have to have a never give up mentality and sometimes patience is the key to finding what you've been looking for.

  Sometime in February of 2012, I got a phone call from a Goddard School asking me if I was interested in interviewing for a lead teaching position in a preschool classroom. It was a long interview process and I wasn't sure what to expect. However,  I just let my love of children and my desire to make a difference do the talking for me. I helped open a brand new Goddard School less than 10 minutes from our apartment and I got the job as a lead three's teacher. A wonderful group of young students, a beautiful new building, a job close to home, a co-teacher, a flexible schedule, a fun, challenging and exciting learning environment, I had it all. Going to work every day was just a wonderful feeling; I was living life and loving it.