Teaching as Her Life's Mission

Bea Garcia, the chair of the world languages department and a Spanish teacher at NMH, gave the following invocation before a faculty workshop on teaching by author and educator Dr. Sonia Nieto in March.

Race, gender, sexual orientation, language, physical ability, ethnicity, age—these are some of the dimensions that define us. There are others that might be added also, but there is one that, for me, is probably the most important one: I am a teacher.

I’ve changed, I am changing, we all are, and sometimes I’ve changed dramatically.  Sometimes change hurts, and many times it lacks sense. But there is always something good that comes out of it. I’ve gone from being a white teacher to being a faculty of color, and that just happened after 12 hours on a plane that took off in Montevideo and landed in New York City. I would recommend you try that trip!
I’ve gone from communicating in Spanish and using English just as an excuse to teach, to speaking English to build bridges in a new community. Yes, I speak English with an accent but don’t we all?

I’ve gone from being a resident of a country to being an alien worker to being a “pending case,” which is sometimes difficult to understand, let alone explain.

Every year, whenever I have to check off the year of my birth, I need to scroll further down; but that has made me wiser too, I would like to think.

And I have also changed as a teacher, dramatically, radically, philosophically. But there is something in the teacher that I am that hasn’t changed and that is the ultimate conviction that this is who I am and who I want to be. That this is my mission in this life and what explains all the rest.

I don’t exactly remember why I became a teacher. My mom could never understand why I dropped out of the School of Architecture to become a teacher; I couldn’t explain it either, other than by saying, “Because it makes me happy.” However, I do know exactly why I continue to be a teacher. I know why I couldn’t be anything else. I know this is my contribution to social justice and equity, my political statement. And it is good to remember, especially in challenging times, what keeps us going.

Many years ago, when I was a teacher in elementary school I used to suffer from migraines, those that would knock me down and would take me straight to the hospital. I had to be hooked up to an IV for a few hours before I could start to feel better. One of those times, I ended up again in the ER and a young and very nice doctor came to assist me. I could barely speak to him but I remember answering his questions and thinking, “Oh, please, just give me the damn pain medicine.” After a few minutes he approached a nurse and asked her to get me started. When the nurse asked him what was wrong with me so that she could fill out the chart he looked at me and responded nonchalantly, “Oh, nothing serious, she is a teacher.” I think he got it right.

Let’s take a minute to reflect upon our journey, why we are here, our friends, our students.