Better a Space Ranger

What is your mission? For the past 6 years my answer was to nurture a love for science in the hearts of my students. I’ve worked in and around Baltimore city with the brightest, most passionate and spirited young people one could ever hope to encounter. So far in my career both of my schools were segregated but made up with heart for what they lacked in diversity.  After receiving the distinction of Baltimore County Public Schools Teacher of the Year I’ve taken on a new mission and wrestled with whether it’s something I’ve actually been working towards unknowingly the whole time.

I want to uplift the teaching profession. I want to make teaching more impenetrable to reckless, uninformed public opinion (think common core rants, and test score teacher evaluations) because it complicates and threatens our important work. I want to shine a light on this valuable profession for shaping communities and fighting societal inequity, especially to the criminally underrepresented populations (black and brown children).

But… I’m just a T.O.Y.

In one of several comedic, frustrated attempts during the movie Toy Story, Woody struggles to break the newcomer, Buzz Lightyear, out of apparent psychosis.  When he screams “YOU… ARE… A… TOY!” in staccatoed squawks I hear my own inner conflict spilling out through the animated cowboy on screen. In the movie, Woody’s angst stems from several places, most paramount of all is his fear of being replaced in the toy dichotomy as Andy’s favorite.  But what comes to the surface between the two ends up being more about recognizing identity and putting aside differences for the benefit of a child.

Enter the 29-year-old Science teacher from Old Court. Since the award ceremony in April, my own Woody and Buzz, unashamedly darker in complexion in my reimagining, have been going back and forth on the reality/identity in which I now exist. Am I the tried and trusted sheriff, armed with a pull string unleashed cache of canned catch phrases? Or, am I the starry-eyed space ranger donning an armored suit, stowable wings and a wrist mounted laser beam of truth? The real answer is…

I’m both, and neither one. If that sounds stupid it’s because complex things often do when squeezed in spaces as small as a five-word sentence. It is true I am a T.O.Y. who –like Woody– can instantly deploy my most scathing and steadfast talking points at the smallest tug.  However, in my Buzz-like alternate universe this T.O.Y. is not to be played with in pursuit of mission: accomplished. I straddle between the realization that this is a one-year opportunity with certain limitations and the belief that I can battle both uninformed opinions about educators and the obstacles facing the recruitment of our next generation of diverse, socially aware educators. Like the animated characters I’ll work to balance both for the benefit of the children. But in my personal Toy Story, I say better a Space Ranger.