The essay saga continues.

I hate the essay. I know what I want to say. I want to say, look, I've been a special ed teacher the hard way for 9 years. I know the ins and outs and the shit no one's thought of in an IEP. I am damned good at knowing what needs to happen to get various services provided to a child. I know a lot of linguistics. I kick some serious ass.

I am not even sure how to explain away the teaching credential fiasco from the first time. I did not want to teach English, but rather English as a Second Language and I could not force myself, no matter how hard I tried to enjoy it. I fucking loathed it. I hated it. I hated lesson plans for it and considered it lower drudgery than cleaning cat vomit. Teaching English to high school kids at a school where gang shootings regularly occurred was terrifying and a totally hideous experience. Student teaching while flat broke and still recovering from a suicidal week in the hospital just 4 short months before was an insane undertaking on my part and is something I should have deferred for a year, at least. In fact, probably more like 12 years, actually.

I was trying to do the right thing, more than anything -- get out of school, get a job, and get on with my life.

However, despite all of these items, the thing I keep coming back to is that I love to teach. I love problem solving teaching. I love teaching English as a second language because I have to figure out how I am going to teach them to form their mouths correctly to utter the sounds they need or even how English might compare to their language and their culture. I love giving writing topics where a kid reveals something cool and interesting about their home life or culture. I love working with special ed because there's a success story at the end of it. There's a kid who has worked their butt off to reach for tangible successes, outlined in an IEP.

My son is a success story. The kid placed in the 90th percentile for math skills in our state. He's got good grades and he views scholastic successes gleefully and most of all, people can understand all the smart things he tells them that he knows, now. He knows what it means to work hard -- to go from severely speech handicapped to mildly handicapped and get somewhere and that is so amazing to me. I helped him. He helped me. We are becoming better people because of each other and I want to take the person I've become because of his hard work and help other people.

I guess *that* should be my essay.