After a Decade Working in Mental Health, This Future Teacher Is Headed for the Classroom

In our Future Teacher sequence, we characteristic college students enrolled in trainer preparation applications to search out out what set them on this profession path and why they stayed on it, regardless of the advanced challenges dealing with the schooling workforce. This month, we’re that includes Davenport.

The following interview has been frivolously edited and condensed for readability.

EdSurge: When did you notice you wished to turn out to be a trainer? Is there a particular reminiscence or story related to it?

Josh Davenport: When I used to be youthful and making an attempt to determine my life, my mother all the time mentioned, ‘You would be great at teaching.’ Back then, I used to be like, no, no, no. But I really feel like she all the time knew that is what I’d find yourself doing. It may sound cliché, however I simply noticed her truly, and he or she was like, ‘Yeah, I knew it. I knew you would end up being a teacher because you’ve always kind of been that person. Even with your friend group, you were always trying to teach them things.’

I assume she was proper.

But that wasn’t clear to you for a while. Tell me about the years in between.

When I graduated highschool and I used to be making an attempt to resolve what I used to be going to do for faculty, I went in as a advertising and marketing main after which switched to journalism and finally settled on psychology. I nonetheless did not actually know what I wished to do, however psychology positively grabbed my consideration. (And I feel it will be actually good having that background going into educating.)

Then, after graduating with my bachelor’s diploma 11 or 12 years in the past, I labored as a neighborhood disaster liaison in Knoxville for a [nonprofit provider of mental health, substance use and social and victim services]. They supplied me with a car, and when somebody was in a disaster state of affairs, my major job was basically to go meet them and produce them again to our facility. It was an inpatient facility, so sufferers would keep there for a few days. I obtained to see them once they obtained there, earlier than they left, but additionally throughout the in-between time once they had been getting therapy — like going to group remedy, speaking to prescribers about remedy, issues like that. I did that for eight-ish years.

Then the pandemic occurred, and I used to be sort of burned out. I’m not gonna say I went in feeling like I used to be gonna change the world, however you will get caught in a rut working in psychological well being [and substance abuse treatment].

They name it a ‘revolving door.’ It’s a lot of the identical folks coming in and out of the facility. You can provide all of them this recommendation, and so they can go to all the teams and the whole lot, nevertheless it’s defeating once they nonetheless simply find yourself doing the identical factor. My hope and my thought was that youngsters — like highschool college students — are nonetheless younger and impressionable, and possibly they’re going to hear. Some of them do.

So the pandemic started. You obtained burned out in your job. How did that find yourself turning you on to educating?

I began wanting for different jobs, and I discovered the one which I at the moment have, working as a restorative interventionist for Knox County Schools. I began there in October 2020. And then I simply obtained a random electronic mail at some point about the Grow Your Own program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. They had been reaching out to individuals who had bachelor’s levels who had been employed by Knox County Schools, about furthering their educations and probably changing into lecturers.

I didn’t end the software the first yr. But then they despatched me the electronic mail once more in the fall of 2022. That time, I utilized. I obtained in after which enrolled in January. I simply completed my first semester of lessons, and now I’m in my summer time lessons.

What was motivating you, at the time, to enroll in this program to get your educating license?

So after we first met, my now-wife began working at a faculty close by. She was beginning her profession in schooling, and he or she was sort of the one pushing me towards educating. She was like, ‘Hey, you don’t like your job. You could be good at this.’ (It’s not that I didn’t like my job. I used to be simply burned out. I had stayed a lot longer than most of the pals I’d made working there.) So she sort of pushed me to go for the job at a faculty as a restorative interventionist, and I cherished it. I nonetheless like it, virtually three years later. I get to work with totally different children all the time.

That’s nice. But when you like it, why change what you’re doing to turn out to be a trainer?

Well, there’s the nice motivator of cash. I’d earn more money if I used to be a trainer.

You do not hear that daily.

Ha, I’m simply being trustworthy. I really like doing what I do, but additionally it might be good to make more cash and transfer up the chain, so to talk.

But it’s greater than that. I’d like to have a classroom. In the function I’m in now, I get to know virtually all the college students in our college. I get to see a lot of them daily. But it might be good to have a class that I educate.

It’s additionally actually vital to me and my spouse that our household’s schedules sync up. We have a busy residence life; we’ve got six youngsters. It’s a blended household. We have six children mixed, from prior marriages.

One of our children attends the faculty that I work at. Three of them are at an elementary faculty close by. One is at a center faculty that we’re zoned for, and the different one is at another faculty. So we’ve got 4 totally different faculties at the moment. One of the children rides with me. A few them take the bus. We’ve obtained all of it discovered. It’s simply generally mass chaos in the mornings till about 8 o’clock.

When do you anticipate to get your educating license?

I shall be eligible to take the Praxis this summer time, and I might begin as early as the fall of this yr. I have never actually been actively making use of to locations for a educating place but, however someday inside the subsequent yr I’ll hopefully have my license. But I’m going for my grasp’s diploma. I’m making an attempt to take as many lessons as I can deal with. It’s all on-line, and as I’ve gotten older, it’s a lot simpler to handle on-line coursework.

I wish to discover a educating place in a faculty that’s a good match. Since I’m completely happy in my present function, I’m not in a tremendous massive rush to take the very first thing I discover.

Why do you wish to turn out to be a trainer?

Going again to the psychological well being work I did earlier than, it simply felt like I used to be getting nowhere with folks. My job was speaking to folks, and I’ve all the time been good at speaking to folks. But it’s simply sort of disheartening if you make a reference to somebody and also you’re making an attempt to assist them out after which they only fall again on the identical factor they had been doing. It’s onerous to interrupt previous habits.

But with younger folks, working with highschool children, they’re nonetheless at that stage the place they’re going to take heed to what it’s a must to say, and a lot of instances — not all the time, however a lot of instances — they’re going to take your recommendation and truly apply it. I’m nonetheless making an attempt to make that impression I used to be earlier than, however as a trainer, I’ll be capable to attain folks earlier.

My first yr right here, we had a child give us — me and two of the principals — a shoutout on Instagram after he graduated. He was like, ‘I wouldn’t have made it without y’all.’ It was my first yr at the faculty, and I had simply actually related with him. We began by speaking about music, after which I obtained him to begin turning in his work.

It was a kind of issues the place I simply needed to discover one thing to attach with him on. And when you construct that relationship with college students first, then they’re extra prepared to take heed to what it’s a must to say. You may be like, ‘Hey, let’s talk about this,’ or ‘Let’s get a few of this work turned in, OK?’

There are some college students who should not going to take heed to you if they do not belief you or they do not really feel like they know you. It’s cool to look at them develop and mature. I feel I’m actually good at constructing relationships with my college students and making an attempt to determine what makes them tick.

What provides you hope about your future profession as a trainer?

The lecturers in my faculty will come to me generally and be like, ‘Hey, I know you know this kid. Can you come talk to them for me?’ There had been some powerful ones this previous yr. There was one case the place the lecturers had been like, ‘Yeah, this kid won’t talk at all. He just uses hand gestures.’ And I used to be like, ‘Oh? Because I took him out for a walk, and he talked to me the whole time. No hand gestures, all words.’ And they had been questioning how? I instructed them I simply came upon what he likes. I requested him what he was into after which we related over it.

I’ve all the time been good at that. My final job actually ready me for it as a result of I’d choose up strangers, basically, and need to be in a automobile with them. I’d attempt to make it not awkward. I’d attempt to speak to them, like beginning out with small speak. It was simply a kind of issues the place you sort of need to gauge the individual. I labored in eating places earlier than I obtained out of faculty, and I feel that actually prepares you for gauging folks. When you are ready tables, generally folks do not wish to hear something it’s a must to say, they only wanna order their meals and eat and be left alone. And different folks need the full present, track and dance. They need you to speak to them and inform them your life story. You need to study to do each.

So what provides me hope is all the alternatives I’ll need to make connections with college students, the likelihood to be that trainer that youngsters keep in mind. I need to have the ability to run into my college students in 5 years and for them to be like, ‘Hey, thanks for always being someone I could talk to in school,’ or ‘Thanks for helping me through that difficult period.’

What provides you pause or worries you about changing into a trainer?

The factor that involves thoughts first is simply making an attempt to remain present as I become older. Now, I attempt to perceive their bizarre memes and their humorousness and stuff, to have the ability to join higher with them. Sometimes I get it. Sometimes I do not. I simply need to have the ability to nonetheless make these connections with children after I become older and never be a cranky previous trainer. I need them to be like, ‘The guy is old, but he gets us.’ You know?

I simply don’t wish to lose my contact with them.

Why does the subject want you proper now?

I can provide you two solutions. One of them is sort of in jest: Knox County Schools simply wants lecturers in basic proper now. They’re short-staffed. That’s most likely true for the entire nation too.

The different goes again to what I’ve been saying: The golden thread of all of it’s making connections. Every class I’ve taken, each coaching I’ve carried out, reinforces the concept that your college students should not going to belief you when you do not type some sort of reference to them. I actually will speak to each child and attempt to get to know each child as a result of it is the job. That’s the job.