Mr. Finer was really stressed when he first became a teacher. There were many hard things he had to do. But eventually, Mr. Finer started to like being a teacher. He is so organized with his room.
TRANSCRIPT:
Dayeli Mantilla: So Mr.Finer.
Carl Finer: Mhhhhm.
DM: Tell me what was your dream job, when you were in high school?
CF: Uh I think my dream job when I was in high school was to become a journalist.
DM: A journalist?
CF: Yea.
DM: And why did you wanted to become a journalist?
CF: Hmm I think, well for a couple reasons I like the idea of, I think I like the idea of like using your voice to try and make positive change whether it was investigating something and exposing wrong doing or helping people tell their stories or get their stories out there, that otherwise might not have the opportunity. Uh hmm I think I was, yea really interested in how I can use like communication skills to make the world better.
DM: Oh okay, and why did you become a teacher and not a journalist?
CF: Sure I mean in some ways I become both so I think I got the best of both worlds, but uh hmm yea a couple reasons uh so when I went to college as a undergrad my original, what I thought I was going to me it major in when I started was magazine journalism and sociology.
DM: Hmm.
CF: Uh hmm but really pretty quickly I realized that there weren’t going to be any magazine jobs in a couple years and there were only a couple magazine professors there was like three or four. Uh mm and I realized that I needed like more of like brought or experience and the closest fit they had were I thought I would get to learn all sorts of different media tools. Uh hmm the department was called television-radio-film, where I went to school. So I switched to that because I wanted to make sure I knew how to do video and how to do audio and things other than just like writing for magazines which, is so narrow and then uh sociology is like the study of how society works and it was interesting but after I took a couple classes it seems to me a lot more, theoretical or kinda like a lot of, some of the stuff seems more like complaining then how to do anything about things and so I switched to public policy which is like, more ably to like how does, like government work, how do institutions work and how to, like work with them to change them from the better.
So um, so that was part of the start is just switching my majors, Uh mm but then where the teaching came in is I kept finding myself gravitating towards work with kids when I was in college. So for example in my television-radio-film major I had a professor who I took a bunch of classes on how to like make documentary, like documentary movies and documentary shows and I had a professor who was very involved with a high school near campus that had a large Native American student population and he was helping them start a film club and so on Saturdays he would have a bunch of high school native high school students up and some of his students like me would help them like make movies like have from writing a script to filming it, to editing it and I thought that was really cool like teaching kids how to like, have use the tools that have excuse me there own voice and then Uh mm I was doing like public service work and I was like making commercials to air on locals TV, for like Big Brothers and Big Sisters.
Uh mm and then even in my other major, my public policy major I found my, I kept taking gravitating towards classes about like how schools work and education systems work so I kinda kept finding my way into things that had to do with kids. Uh mm and then it was actually my little brother so I was uh a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters in undergrad uh mm and he was the one that was like “you know did you ever thought about teaching like I think you’ll be good at it” and uh mm my mom was a teacher and one of my grandparents were a teacher and so of course I was like “nawww I don’t wanna be a teacher I am not going to be like them” uh mm but he was the one that convince me to like seriously consider it and so uh mm.
I figured, I figured I will give it a shot in for five years. I feel like it takes like at least four to five years to be good at something to know if you’re good at it or you want to keep doing it and I figured you know I am going to go and give this a shot and get my credential and like really try for five years and then after that I’ll either decide I want to keep teaching or I’ll take that experience from teaching and maybe go and be a education journalist and write about schools and then uh I just kept finding reasons to keep teaching but I also get to keep writing too so.
DM: And what was the hardest thing when you first became a teacher?
CF: When I first became a teacher, the hardest thing was uh mm so many hard, I had no idea what I was doing, I had no idea what I was doing at all. For me I think, I guess the hardest thing was just I was so overwhelmed like-
DM: You were stressed?
CF: Yea I was really stressed and I feel like there was so much information thrown at me at once. When I started like I had no way like understand like what to do first or what to do second or what was important or what wasn’t important it was just overwhelming to me uh mm yea I had, my first teaching job here was at LA academy not to far from here and since I was kinda a late hire they gave me, I had a eight grade reading intervention class that they, the counselors basically put every kid who showed up late for school in there, even the ones who didn’t need to be in there. So I had like, I wasn’t even supposed to have it but I had like sixth, seventh, eighth graders in the same class. I had kids who could totally read fine that the counselors had put them in the wrong class, I had kids who, I had a kid who would rip their clothes off and get up the table and who belonged in, that wasn’t the right setting for him, honestly it was like chaos my first year. I had a kid uh mm punch my door in, it was wild I was so stressed out I didn’t even sleep in my own bed.
My first year I slept on the floor and it took me a while to figure out “why do I fall asleep better when I’m on the floor” like what is it about this when I’m so stressed out I sleep on the floor and it took me a while but I figured out that growing up as a kid in Ohio. Uh mm the only room in the house, we didn’t have air conditioning for the whole house my parents’ room had one like in the window and that was the only room that got cool. So during the summer when like it was so hot and the fan wasn’t enough like in the middle of the night my brother and I would go in my parents room and throw a blanket down on the floor and close the door and there, because that was the only room that was like cool and so there must be mental association of like being next to my twin brother or everybody being in the same room that was like comforting that, I would like sleep on the floor and that was the only way I could fall asleep during my first year.
DM: Really?
CF: Yea, yea.
DM: That’s nice.
CF: I mean I sleep on my own bed now, fortunately.
DM: And what was the easiest thing of being a teacher?
CF: The easiest thing of being a teacher, easiest thing? Uh mm.. When I started or now?
DM: Like…
CF: It does get easier, it never gets easy, but it does get easier.
DM: Like now.
CF: Like now?
DM: Yea.
CF: Uh I think the, easiest thing is like once you start to figure out like your routine and structures, is almost like you don’t, like once you build a habit you don’t have to think about it all the time you just do it. So like when you’re first staring now lots of little things, like where do I want students to put their papers, how do I want them to enter the room, like what class do I have. There are so many things and then once you figure those thing there kinda like, done you know like I don’t have to like ask myself like what where do I want students to hand in their work, like.
DM: So you had everything organized?
CF: Everything organized.
DM: Yea.
CF: Exactly yea my room is like really organized now, but it wasn’t always like that, like I was really disorganized when I started because I didn’t know anything like and then like I would go like see what other really good teachers did or people would help me and I just had to find things that would work for me and stick with them and once I stuck with them like “we’re good” and is really the same for students too like once you have habits like you just do them. Then that freeze up your brain to think about, more important things.
DM: Oh.
CF: So I cant spend my time thinking about like how to help students verses like where do I put the papers.
DM: Well thank you Mr.
CF: Your welcome.
DM: For sharing your story.
CF: Sure is there anything else you want to ask me?
DM: No that’s it.
CF: Okay, well thank you for asking.
DM: Yea.
