I could tell you like everybody else that I always wanted to become a teacher and I wouldn’t be lying, but I wouldn’t be telling you the whole truth. You see, despite the many jobs and projects I have had since my graduation, teaching is the only thing that I return to over and over.
In fact, Ishmael in Moby Dick expresses it better than I do: “Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries- stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water”. I am driven to teaching the same way. Behind everything that I have done was an unrelenting desire to share anything that I know, but more specifically my love for the complex and beautiful French language, my passion for literature, my weaknesses for perfectly written sentences, and like this man with water, each step that I have taken through these years have led me to education.
Just as if you travel far enough you’ll eventually end up at the sea, everywhere I went I was teaching: whether it was by coaching improv groups in high school or training new cashiers at my student job in a grocery store. When I graduated I landed a spot on a teacher-on-call list at the Cégep de Chicoutimi as a French and Literature teacher, but the phone never rang. However, for a while, I found myself using my love for French language differently by mostly working in journalism, copywriting and marketing.
After years of juggling jobs and freelance work, working more than 80 hours a week, and multiplying projects and contracts, I found myself exhausted, unhappy, and unfulfilled. It is true that my work required elements that made me tick like making complicated software accessible to all and creatively using grammar to fit search engine’s demands, but in reality, I was mostly selling stuff with words I did not believe in.
Then, I got my first teaching contract at the Cégep de Chicoutimi: a summer class on Discourse and Communication. Weirdly enough, those past years spent doing seamingly unrelated jobs had taught me exactly what I needed to take on that big challenge: hard work, self-confidence, generosity, and empathy. What I was looking for all that time was lying right there in the classroom. Just like that, I was back in front of the water.
Unlike copywriting that has a limited power in the grand scheme of things, education can have a tremendous impact in everyone’s life. Yes, I always wanted to teach, but today, after all these life experiences, I am here with a reason, a purpose: I believe in the power of education and the importance of mastering a language. I believe in the beauty of French language because its complexity rewards you with an improved sensibility to vocabulary and a love for long sentences. I also believe that learning a second language makes you a better human because it teaches you humility and connexion. I believe that teaching French in an anglophone territory is a real privilege. I believe in all those things because I have experienced every day how truly important it is to know how to express yourself.