Third Year Reflection on Alternative Certification

As a 3rd year NYC Teaching Fellow (or first-year former fellow), there are many things that I wonder would be different about the flow of my day-to-day life had I chosen a different path.

For those who always knew they would be teachers and went to school to be teachers probably have a very different mentality that I do. It's not that I don't want to continue doing what I do, I simply wonder how things would be different.

For example: For a trained teacher who didn't take the path of alternative certification, they may not have the sort of identity crisis that I occasionally run into every now and again. Allow me to explain: Right now, I see 3 different versions of myself trapped in the same body. The Working Dugong, the Family Dugong, and the Social Dugong.

The Working Dugong is me at work. This is the most alien version of myself. I'm typically very neurotic yet on task when at school. It's high stress and there's usually a lot more to do than can be done in a single school day, which adds to the stress. Essentially, any work, graduate school, or Fellow-related gatherings fall into this category.

The Family Dugong is the version of myself that exists when I go home to visit family and close friends. This is probably the most accurate version of who I really am since I'm really uninhibited and there's really nothing taboo amongst this group. In spite of this, there is the trade-off between the stresses of work and the stresses of having family members who often worry on my behalf but occasionally forget that their input are only suggestions.

The last is the Social Dugong. This is the version of myself that socializes with the locals in the area. This is the version of myself that desires a good movie, a Central Park excursion, a Museum trip, or even an evening of bar-hopping. The reason why this version is separate from others is to distinguish between the people who genuinely understand the difficulties of urban teaching versus the ones who sympathize but never give your job another thought outside your presence. The vast majority of my friends would probably fall into this category. I do what I can to spend as much time with this group with little success (this group stands the best chance at taking my mind off of the stresses of the other versions).

There are times when I have trouble figuring out who I really am, which reinforces my belief that anybody who rationally decides to join the Fellows really doesn't know what they're getting themselves into. The vast majority of my time is spent as the Working Dugong. At a distant second comes the Family Dugong. The least amount of my time is spent as the Social Dugong.

Still makes me wonder what I have become or who I am after 3 years in NYC... I don't think I can answer that. I understand that regardless of the career I choose, I will face this distinction between work, family, and social priorities. But I can't help but recognize how totally different I am in the presence of these different groups. It's actually kind of mind-boggling how different these versions are (hence my identity crisis or multiple personalities).