The complex reality of my dream job

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It is New Year’s Day, 2026. This time of year is bookmarked in people’s calendars as a time to publish highlights, celebrations, radiant photos of dream destinations and life milestones. One year, 365 days of surviving becomes condensed into 20 images on an Instagram feed. 

I admit: I am complicit in this tradition. I rush at any opportunity to reflect with a deadline. The New Year is a journal prompt that coaxes me back to the blank page with the promise of intermission. It provides a pause from the whirlwind year of travel and life transitions. However, I attempt to embed the reality behind the highlight reel. My caption removes the curtain from the grins and cherry blossoms to reveal the challenges of transitioning into two new teaching jobs, grieving a home I had left behind, and getting to know myself in an unfamiliar dream role.
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In early June, I interviewed for and was offered a job as a third-grade dual-language Spanish teacher in my hometown. After applying to at least six different schools and ten different teaching jobs in the Twin Cities area, this position was the only one to offer me an in-person interview. 

I was stunned when I received a call offering me the job when I got home from the interview – just fifteen minutes later! I was still riding the adrenaline rush of connecting with the team and realizing that their school’s values echo my own as I answered their questions regarding equity, anti-racist practices, and my teaching philosophy. 

I felt seen in the company of professionals whose unique stories led them to the same purpose. I felt at home in the Argentinian accent of one of my interviewers (who turned out to be my future mentor). I felt honored and in awe when they invited me to join their diverse, bilingual team.

“We are a part of a revolution,” my mentor informed me a few months later during new hire training. We sat in my disassembled classroom, concept maps scribbled on the whiteboard. 

“Bilingual, bicultural education,” she continued, “is a reinvention of the educational wheel in the U.S.” There are limited resources, teacher preparation programs, and effective curriculums for teaching the development of literacy and math competencies in Spanish. Dual-language Spanish programs exist in their own realm; they have their own culture.

It has been my dream to work in a Spanish immersion program since leaving Uruguay. I longed to build bridges between cultures and languages, belong in a bilingual community, and apply my developing skills as a human who teaches. In these early conversations with my mentor, I felt my passion ignite. 

My dream job, the revolution, became a reality almost overnight. The scroll of infinite tasks unwound with the first step into my classroom in late July. The dream of decorating the vacant yellow walls transitioned into frustration over re-measuring bulletin board paper three times and unloading the car in 90-degree heat. 

Simultaneously, however, the blank canvas invigorated me to scour TPT (Teachers Pay Teachers) and Amazon for Spanish resources and plant-themed decorations. Last-minute trips to Lakeshore with my mom after spending the morning stapling, cleaning, and organizing became an August tradition. 

With each week, I felt myself settling into the hum of the building, but I could not fall into the ever-changing rhythm. Each week brought new meetings, responsibilities, and then suddenly, open house and the first day of school.

Nothing could have completely prepared me for what this first year of full-time teaching would bring. No, not even long-term subbing. However, the complex reality of teaching in a revolutionary program shares many of the same struggles and celebrations as those of a monolingual English school. 

The past four months introduced me to the turbulent balance of daily administrative work, curriculum adaptation, behavior management, and lesson planning. Often, I have to teach myself the Spanish vocabulary of a lesson the morning that I teach it. (For example, I never anticipated being familiar with the skeletal and muscular systems in Spanish before this year!). Each day I coach myself through self-doubt and the exhaustion of carrying the diverse needs of eighteen energetic humans. 

On the other hand, I find joy in the small shared moments: Monday greetings of warm hugs and giddy smiles after a weekend apart, shrieks of glee from sledding in a huddle during extra recess on Fridays, and proud declarations of “That’s not fair! ¡Es injusto!” in discussions centering social justice and activism. I celebrate the community our class has painstakingly built, the trust and bilingual relationships I’ve nurtured, and the students' maturing confidence, self-expression, social advocacy, and academic skills. 

“You cannot take full credit for all your students’ failures or their successes.” This message from one of my mentor’s biweekly check-ins is one of my biggest take-a-ways from this first semester. As much as I aim to foster a calm classroom environment grounded in kindness, justice, and unity, I cannot control my students' actions. And that truth is both reassuring and frightening.

 “Progress over perfection” is the community anchor in every meeting that provides me with peace of mind. Perfection is impossible when working with human beings. My students and I are progressing every day at our own pace. Progress is alchemic in nature, catalyzed by mistakes and lessons. 

Lessons bloom from these struggles and celebrations. Some of the lessons are old, affirmed by experience in a different school culture and grade. Others are new, freshly realized in the two weeks of winter break decompression. Every one nurtures my evolution as a human who teaches. 
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1. I can't fix everything

2. I am becoming the teacher I want to be

3. Patience with myself, with time, and with others is essential to survival and sustainability

4. What I know right now is enough for my students

5. I have hope for a future of love and empathy

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