My Turn
Time To Say Goodbye ... For A While

After seven years in the classroom, this California teacher decided to try writing, something she'd wanted to do since high school. The hard part was telling her students.

By Joanne Levy-Prewitt

Fourth grade teacher Joanne Levy-Prewitt is now trying her hand at freelance writing, though she says, "I miss the kids and my colleagues."

"Why don't you want to be a teacher anymore?" It came as an innocent question from a red-haired fourth grade girl, and it had no simple answer. I struggled with my words, stammering, as I worried that any response might be misconstrued.

Lindsay had come in early to help me prepare for the school day, and her question jolted me from my early morning concentration. "It's not that I don't want to be a teacher anymore," I told her. "It's just that I've always wanted to be a writer, and you can't be a writer if you don't have any time to write. I'm just taking a year off, Lindsay."

There. That sounded like an honest, if evasive, reply. But she wasn't satisfied. "Don't you like being a teacher?" she asked.

"It's not that simple, Lindsay," I said. "I love teaching, and I love the kids, but all my life I've dreamed of being a writer. I've gone through life with stories in my brain, and it just seems like now is the time to write my stories down. I want to share them with others."

She shot me a look of betrayal, which made living with my decision all the more difficult. Teaching can be intoxicating. I found that the more I became swept up in the experience of teaching, the more powerful I felt.

I felt like a brilliant mathematician when I taught the beauty of a multiplication array. I was an explorer while trudging through pouring rain to show my fourth graders the site of the original California gold discovery.

I was Mrs. Wizard when we made soda can flashlights at Halloween to illustrate the wonder of a simple circuit. I was a mediator when I taught them "I" messages to improve communication. Yet while I wore a multitude of hats in the classroom, I still wasn't a writer.

Being an elementary school teacher has many rewards. Exciting kids about the curriculum is exhilarating, but helping them become lifelong learners is probably the greatest reward.

Last summer I ran into a former student and his mother at the grocery store.

After he said a shy, "Hello," his mother remarked about how as a high school student he discovered his passion for history. "You must have lit a fire under him with that trip to the gold country," she said with a chuckle. I was shocked. Whoever would have known?

The stories and anecdotes will stay with me forever. There were the irrational parents. One mother was livid that I'd asked her daughter how she felt about the death of a character in a book, insisting that I was trying to "shrink" her kid.

Another parent called a meeting with the superintendent and principal to protest the C I'd given her daughter's project. At the meeting, I presented a three-page justification for the assignment and my grading process. After my presentation, she tearfully admitted that she had made the project herself.

But there were supportive parents, too. In fact, it was a parent who helped me reconcile my feelings about leaving the classroom. When I expressed doubts--I told her that I'd been raised to always contribute to society, and that I couldn't help but feel self-centered about my decision--she had wise, comforting words.

"Don't you see that by leaving the classroom you're setting an example?" she said. "You're teaching the children that you're a lifelong learner, and that it's never too late to pursue your dreams."

On my last day of teaching, my class presented me with a gift. I could tell by the shape and heft of the package that it was framed. I unwrapped what looked like a beautiful watercolor rendering of a tree.

On closer inspection, I saw that each leaf, 27 in all, was actually a green thumbprint of each of my students. Their thumbprints formed the canopy of the tree, and not far from the tree, sitting upright on the grass, was a single red apple, the universal symbol for teachers.

Joanne Levy-Prewitt is on leave from teaching and is now writing. Reach her at jklprewitt@home.com.

Editor's Note

The photographs that appear in the pages of NEA Today come mostly from local photographers working for newspapers in small towns, suburbs, and cities where NEA members live and work.

Over the nearly 20 years of NEA Today's existence, we've discovered some excellent talent across the United States.

In the course of a year, we hire several hundred photographers. Some of our best photographers have been working for NEA Today on a freelance basis for 10 to 15 years.

Several work for popular mainstream publications like USA Today, Time, and National Geographic magazine.

We've also tapped the nation's colleges and universities for photographic talent. Two of the photos on the Innovators pages in this issue were taken by university staff photographers in Florida and North Carolina.

Once in a while, high school students break into our pages. Nebraska junior Tiffany Lambrecht, who snapped a shot of students and Nebraska teacher John Street that first appeared in USA Today, also provided our photo on page 36 of this issue.

We're always interested in fresh talent--in both photography and graphic illustration. We're also looking to hire a greater number of minority freelance photographers and illustrators to handle our assignments.

The field of photojournalism still tends to be dominated by white males, but in the last five years or so we've been pleased to be able to display more of the work of minority and female photographers on the pages of NEA Today.

This is important because public schools are very diverse, and telling the public school story through pictures requires being able to see photos from many different perspectives.

—Bill Fischer