Molly Montgomery

Is it possible to be a writer and a public school teacher?

This was the question I asked a number of people while I was deciding what to do with my life while finishing my master’s in creative writing program last spring. Unfortunately, no one could give me a straight answer. My creative writing professors, wonderful as they are, had no experience or interest in teaching in the K-12 world, and most of the English teachers I know like to write as a hobby but aren’t committed to creative writing. I even looked for role models online, people who have published books while also teaching through talking with people on Facebook groups and doing google searches. I didn’t come up with a whole lot. I’ve seen some isolated examples of teachers who also have published novels, like Roxanne Elden (whose blog I adore), but no one was talking about the challenges of trying to write while also teaching. Most people who have taught secondary English told me that as a teacher I would not have time to pursue my own creative projects and that I would be buried under the enormous workload of lessons to write and papers to grade. Still, I knew I had a calling to teach in public schools because I’m drawn to the idea of helping to shape the minds and hearts of young people.

I know I love teaching since it’s the only job I’ve had that fires me up in the same way that writing does. In the second year of my M.A. program in Creative Writing at UC Davis, I designed and taught my own introduction to writing fiction course. It was an incredible experience to see my students’ writing transform in just a few weeks. I enjoyed teaching college, but I was worried it wouldn’t be a sustainable career. I would have to work as an adjunct and perhaps go back to more school since I would need an MFA or a PhD to qualify for most full-time positions. Plus, I haven’t written a book, published any academic articles, or won any prestigious awards, so I would not be competitive on the academic market. Instead of going into academia, I chose to pursue a different career, teaching at the secondary level. I entered a teaching credential program to obtain a single subject credential in English for grades 6-12. I still am not sure if I chose the right path, and I don’t know if I’ll stay in this field forever, but I am learning so much from teaching younger folks.

It’s been 6 months since I started my teaching program, and I’ve barely had any time to write. I’m hoping that this is just temporary, since I have so many things on my plate. Once I get my own classroom and teach for a few years, I will have more time to carve out for my own personal writing. In the past few months, I have met at least one teaching mentor who keeps up writing. She told me she does it by writing on her phone while she’s on the treadmill, jotting down any ideas that strike her at any time, and setting aside time to work deeply on projects during the summer. I am glad I found one person who told me that it is possible to continue writing while teaching, although her whatever-it-takes methods did not do much reassure me that a work-life-writing balance is possible in the future. It’s very discouraging to go from writing every day in grad school and receiving regular feedback from professors to only having time to write if I sacrifice time that I should use to sleep or go to the gym or prepare my lessons. I’m still in the process of figuring out if it’s really possible to pursue my dueling passions— writing and teaching— without tearing myself apart. I decided to start adding posts to my blog to document this experience.

Along the way, I hope to investigate how my writing can help fuel my teaching— and vice versa. As an English teacher, I think it’s important to model the writing process for students. If I’m telling students that they need to write to keep learning, improve their skills, expand their creativity, and grow connections in their brain, shouldn’t I be doing the same?

I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions. I’m a perfectionist, so there is always a ticker tape running in my head of things I should be doing better— working out more, eating healthier food, getting more sleep, and WRITING MORE (it shows up in all caps in my head too.) But I do want to renew my commitment to writing this year, even as I venture further into the rip tide that is the public school system. I’m not afraid I’ll every give up on writing, but I hope to not go so long without it that when I do write it feels like I’m gasping for air after nearly drowning.

After writing a whole collection of short stories for my master’s thesis, most which will never see the light of day, I wrote a total of one new short story that I’m even close to satisfied with during the second half of 2018. I’m proud I wrote as much as that. Right now, I’m struggling to find the mental space to write when I come home exhausted beyond belief, frustrated with my ineptitude at teaching. It’s hard to remember how to be a novice at something, but teaching reminds me over and over again of how much you can learn from failing repeatedly until you get it right. Writing is like that too most of the time. I’m trying to learn how to recover from a stressful day of teaching by writing, and how to dive into teaching while letting my writing brain still whir in the background. In the long term, I don’t know if I’ll succeed at becoming both a good teacher and a better writer. But I’m willing to bet that it’s possible, as long as I don’t give up.

If you’re interested at all in following my journey, subscribe to my blog, and I will post more about my dual identity as a writer-teacher in the upcoming months.