When Robert Stevenson first wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I can almost guarantee that he did not write this novel with the understanding that nearly one hundred and fourth years later a young teacher would be sitting and musing about her connection with his creation of these paralleling monsters. Yet, here I am. Nearly one hundred and forty years later, finding that I have much more in common with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than I had ever thought possible.
Let me explain myself. I do not find my connection to these fictional characters in the way that part of me is good and the other is evil. However, I do find myself, on a weekly, basis straddling the line between my existence as Ms. Turk and Sam. One exists in the classroom with my students and the other exists at the park on Saturdays.
Ms. Turk is always level headed and seemingly poised while Sam tends to be scattered brained and often has her hair partially thrown up into a clip as well as dog hair scattered on all of her clothing. Yet, at times, Ms. Turk glances down and finds a few stray dog hairs, missed by the lint roller, caught in her sweater. Or a student cracks a joke that is widely inappropriate for school and Ms. Turk has to fight the bubbles of laughter in her throat from escaping her lips in order to chastise the student for being inappropriate, reminding the students that there is a “time and place”. Here, in these moments, my two personas cross and I constantly find my lives as Ms. Turk and Sam bleeding together like red and blue paint on a canvas. One crisp and calm and the other vibrant and somewhat always askew.
At the beginning of this teaching adventure, I fought hard to keep my teaching persona and my daily life separate. Probably due to a healthy dose of fear from the countless ethics modules. I did not believe that they could mix and if they did, I feared that I would lose respect from my students and that important lines would become blurred. However, I quickly found that I was wrong and that fighting to keep these two parts of myself separate was simply exhausting.
They were meant to be together, these sides of myself, and they influenced each other greatly. I would not be who I am without them both. As I allowed bits and pieces of my true personality into my teaching persona, the red and blue began to combine, creating a lovely shade of purple. That is where I exist now, in that lovely lavender world and I’ve never been more at ease with who I am as both Ms. Turk and Sam.
Teaching as Storytelling 