Okay, here I am, doing this blog thing. It's a silly idea, I really don't have anything to say. I was just reminded recently of my dad and how he told me that the secret to being a writer is to do it. So here I am, Zuri Wallace, being a writer. I can't imagine who would want to read my blog.
Hmmm...What do I write about on here anyway? Isn't it weird that an English teacher can't make up a prompt for herself? It's ridiculous is what it is. Anyway, I'll just go with the old standby of writing about something that's important to me.
Teaching. As long as I can remember I've wanted to be a teacher. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to do a lot of other things in the process, but that has been a constant for me. I can remember chasing Paula around the house with a copy of one of my dad's books and forcing her to listen to me read. She used to hate it, but I felt like that was the only way to get better (and I wanted her to hear my favorite stories (not to mention, I was in a lot of them)). When I was five, my mom brought me home some supplies from an old classroom that they were throwing out. There was a tiny whiteboard that she mounted on my wall as well as a school desk and some old markers. I used to sit my doll Halliberry up in the desk and make her listen to me teach about "The Twilight Princess" or the old books I used to read with mom and dad like "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."
I always loved to read. I think that was my parents' doing. I remember thinking that if everyone had parents like mine, they would all love to read. Maybe that's part of my goal as a teacher, to make kids as excited by a story like Othello as I am. To be honest, as much as I want to understand people's apathy toward great literature, I just can't.
After my two years of service as a Service Teacher, I knew that I wanted to become a career teacher. My mentor was the greatest. Teena Julian was her name, she still teaches in Atlanta, but we haven't talked in awhile. She had had my mom as a teacher years before and the first thing she said to me was that she would be shamed if she couldn't make me at least as good a teacher as my mom made her. Just thinking about it almost makes me cry. I really miss my mommy sometimes!
Oh God, way off topic. So, yeah, I guess that's going to conclude my first blog entry. It ain't exactly five paragraph form, but it's close enough for jazz. Wow, I have never used that term before and it just came out. I guess it's true though, blogging is sort of the jazz of writing. You just say what you say as it comes to you. I just hope none of my students ever find this blog, then I can't say anything bad about them on it. Mwa ha ha.
