Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

What profession do you admire most and why?

Full disclosure, I am a teacher. I taught full time from 2007 to 2020, middle school English and literature. Then covid hit and I sat out (per doctor’s orders) the 2020-2021 school year since I wasn’t old enough for the vaccine yet.

A shift in administration created a job opening that didn’t get filled by the start of the next school year, so for the 2021-2022 school year I taught part-time, grades 5-8 religion, ON A CART. I loved teaching religion but I hated the cart, so I resigned again.

But, apparently I wasn’t done yet because for the 2022-2023 school year I returned and taught 7th and 8th English and literature again, my favorite two grades. I had the best 8th grade homeroom ever, and at the end of the year, I graduated with them. I retired once again, for the third time.

But, then…there was yet another job opening that didn’t get filled in time, so I agreed to return to teach on a long-term sub basis, this time 5th and 6th English. I enjoyed being back, and I shared the 6th grade homeroom with a great coworker. We got along great and had many laughs while wrangling 5th and 6th graders into (grammatical) shape. A full-time teacher was hired over Christmas break, so after a two week transition period, I was “retired” for the fourth time!

Before becoming a teacher, I spent two years being a volunteer in an international school my daughters attended. I learned a lot about how schools work just being there nearly daily filling in where needed, most of the time in the high school library. When we returned to the States I decided to not go back to my previous career in the legal field. I took a part-time job at my church as the youth minister, organizing faith-based activities and service projects for students in grades 6-12. After three years of that, I took a full-time position teaching middle school English and literature for the 2007-2008 school year, and that is how my career in education began.

While learning to teach on the job, I also returned to grad school to complete courses for certification in secondary education in English. That was very challenging, teaching all day, and going to grad school at night. But, it was 100% worth it as I learned a lot and received my certification so I could continue teaching in the small Catholic school I loved.

Over the course of my nearly 20 years in education, I worked with a lot of teachers, some good, some extraordinary. I learned so much from those extraordinary teachers: classroom management, lesson planning, unit building, creating assessments, using technology, and how to reach each student at their level. Those individuals made me a better teacher, and as I worked through my own career, I tried to mentor new teachers I encountered, to make their first years easier, to help them any way I could.

I read an article once that said the only profession that makes more decisions per hour than a teacher is a neurosurgeon. I believe that. After a full day of teaching, six 40-minute periods with two planning periods that frequently became covering for a missing teacher or helping in the office or putting out a fire somewhere (metaphorically), I would sometimes sit perfectly still in the dead silence of my car for a few minutes before driving home.

In a lot of ways, covid shined a spotlight on the teaching profession. When schools closed during the pandemic, and lessons went online, parents were required to step up and supervise their children, helping them manage zoom classes and digital assignments. How many things were seen on social media about how difficult it was, how challenging it was teaching a third grader how to count money, how “new math” was beyond the abilities of many parents, how grammar exercises and essay writing was getting the best of parents who thought they were done with all of that.

I loved teaching, and I loved the newness of each day, the relationship between the students in my classroom and me, the camaraderie of my fellow teachers. I loved the materials I taught, novels I loved sharing with students who began the year as reluctant readers and ended the year asking what they could read over the summer. I loved teaching writing, working through three and five paragraph essays, research papers, stressing the importance of being clear and concise.

Looking back, I know I helped shape the minds of hundreds if not thousands of students. I know I prepared them well for high school English. I know I made some of them love reading. And, I know with every fiber of my being that language arts is the most important core subject because it is the subject that unlocks the doors of success in every other subject. English teachers create doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers (yes, I can name former students in each of those distinguished professions). English teachers also create teachers, who will go on to do the same for future students.

Teachers are people who teach because they can, not because they can’t.