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With the school year only a week away, it’s time to announce my plans as a transitioning teacher (as much as I would like to ignore the “Back to School” ads and classroom set-up videos).
I will be working part-time as a substitute teacher!! You read that right. I will not participate in classroom set-up and professional development meetings. However, I will still gain valuable experiences in classrooms around my city. This fall, I will take my first solo flight as a teacher, managing students across grade levels, environments, and demographics. And as we stay in teacher lingo, my bucket of teaching strategies will fill with each day.
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Coffee Talks
Through these refreshing posts (hopefully paired with your favorite caffeinated beverage), I share anecdotes, fun facts, and reflections from my life away from the classroom. So, imagine we are sharing a conversation over coffee (I’ll have an iced chai with oat milk) – you choose the place. I’ll provide the topic. (Although I am categorizing this post within the "Coffee Talks" series, it deviates from that label as well as the tone and style of my traditional blog posts. I felt this essay's thesis and message applied to the current political climate, and I wanted to share my reflections as an emerging writer. And finally, I just thought it would be fun to attempt my literature review since high school!) “For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind a single voice.”
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own Oh, this takes me back to high school. Junior year, AP Literature. A semester of the classics - Pride and Prejudice, Invisible Man, The Sun Also Rises – excruciating timed essays, and rushed thematic group projects. Unhinged analyses, covered in highlighter ink, the side of my left hand burnt by ink, color-coded tabs decorating the pages in rainbow formation. Frantic late-night SparkNotes and Cliff notes deep dives for self-consolation before the exam. Reading, rereading, committing dates, names, and facts to memory to forget them when I received the menacing packet. And in the biweekly finale, the culminating essay, featuring the stressful clickety-clack of old keyboards in the computer lab.
A bit overdramatic? Perhaps but my (Ivy-league bound) classmates hopefully will vouch for me. However melodramatically dreadful I recall literature review essays, I always felt an affinity towards the analytical process. Digging out quotes, assessing figurative language, and, recently, deciphering the style and syntax. A book is a puzzle that my brain is fit to disassemble and mend. So, I am ready to give the literature review another go, but with a personal twist (aka a social commentary). The subject: Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. 
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About the Coffee Talks series!
Through these refreshing posts (hopefully paired with your favorite caffeinated beverage), I share anecdotes, fun facts, and reflections from my life away from the classroom. So, imagine we are sharing a conversation over coffee (I’ll have an iced latte with oat milk) – you choose the place. I’ll provide the topic. Before my twenty-second birthday, I lived in four cities spanning three countries. I am accustomed to living out of a backpack or suitcase; hurriedly packing up my life into boxes, grocery bags, or carry-on; and building a routine in a changing atmosphere. And no matter the duration – one month, two months, one year, eighteen years– I consider all my temporary addresses a piece of "home."
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AuthorMeghan Hesterman (she/her) is an aspiring educator, storyteller, and traveler. Through regular posts and commentary, she candidly reflects on her evolution as an educator and young adult. Categories
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February 2025
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