Once an Educator, Always an Educator

Introducing: Brittany Del Rosario (she/they), Children and Families Programs Coordinator

“In every position that I’ve been in, there have been naysayers who don’t believe I’m qualified or who don’t believe I can do the work. And I feel a special responsibility to prove them wrong.” 
-Sonia Sotomayor

For the past seven years I’ve been a high school teacher. For five years before that I was training to be a teacher by earning my undergraduate degree and then a masters degree. And for 14 years before that I, myself, was a student in school. That means for 26 years I’ve known nothing else but the school system. It really has been my whole life and while I know I am still young at 30 years old, it was hard to imagine doing anything else or doing something new. In many ways our society allows us to believe that we have to stick to some rigid timeline that tells us we should be experiencing certain things at a particular age. That couldn’t be further from the truth and it was something that I had to unlearn.

Ms. Del Rosario - NHS Spirit Week 2019

Ms. Del Rosario’s Classroom

When I was in high school I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and honestly I would have told you that I wasn’t really good at anything to make that kind of decision. I tossed around ideas of wanting to be a veterinarian, a musician and even a chef but it wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I realized that I wanted to be a teacher. See what you have to understand is that while I had a few wonderfully exceptional teachers, I had far more teachers that didn’t quite live up to my expectations as good educators. I’ve had teachers embarrass me by holding up my incorrect work for the whole class to see, I was told by a few others that I would have to work twice as hard as my peers because I was a small, brown female, and even worse still, at the pivotal moments when I was trying to figure out my own cultural identity, I had teachers who told me it was inappropriate to speak any amount of Spanish because “in this classroom, we speak English.” They will never know how they influenced my development and that my search for my identity would continue to be a struggle as I grew older.

I vowed to be the kind of teacher I needed growing up and for a while I was, but then I left.

Leaving the classroom was both the easiest and most difficult decision I’ve ever made. Despite each year having its own challenges, the connections that I made with my students over the years always kept me returning for more the following year. There were days when I was so sure I was going to quit but then something a student would say would always bring me back to my purpose and keep me grounded. But in the end, as so many former teachers will probably tell you, my students were not the reason I left teaching. I left because public education as a system does not respect teaching as a profession and it often treats educators as disposable. My mental health and well-being were paying too high a price for that kind of disrespect. I no longer felt safe: mentally or emotionally. 

For me, working for we are is about regaining and reclaiming my hold on my mental health and my personal self-worth. This position is about reigniting the passion for teaching that I started out with so many years ago and turning it into something that can truly benefit our students, families, and educators. On a daily basis I get to work with brilliant, beautiful women of color who use their minds, hearts and spirits to help others understand that our society can and should be doing better for our children. With my background in education and my new position with we are I can help ensure that black and brown children receive the support and access to information that I could have only dreamed about having when I was younger. I hold in my hands the opportunity to expand my reach and while I’ll no longer be teaching English Language Arts and Literature in a classroom, I get to teach children and adults how to advocate for themselves, be activists for change and gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be anti-racist in our world. And at the end of each day I realize that I never really stop learning and that I will always be a teacher.

Are you an educator, parent/caregiver, or student interested in contributing to the blog? We are now accepting submissions for the spring and summer. Please email your interests or questions to sarajanee@weare-nc.org.