This post is week 2 of 8 in the 8 Weeks of Summer Blog Challenge for educators.

The prompt for this week is “What has contributed to the educator you are today?” and I have a ready answer for that. The single biggest contributor to who I am as an educator today is the Eastern Michigan Writing Project (EMWP). Joining it has connected me to an incredible community of thoughtful, reflective educators who continue to inspire me and help me be better every school year, and without them, I don’t think that I would still be a teacher today.

When I applied for the EMWP Summer Institute in 2012, I didn’t quite know what to expect. I had only been teaching for two years (the minimum suggested to apply), and I didn’t know anyone else who had done it. I had actually seen a flyer for the Wayne State one when I was still working on my undergrad, and that had made me curious. The Wayne State project wasn’t running a summer institute in 2012 when I was ready to apply, which led me to seek out the Eastern Michigan site, and I am so glad that I did.

I think that I should pause and explain a little bit about my mindset as a teacher at the end of the 2011-2012 school year. I was actually wondering if I had maybe chosen the wrong profession.

I worked in an urban charter school at the time, and I was miserable. The pay was extra low, a solid 20% lower than the public school districts in the area. The hours were extra long, with teachers expected to be present from 7:45 to 4:15 daily. The school year was extended by 2 to 3 weeks beyond most public schools-1 extra week in August for additional teacher training, and one or two extra weeks of school in June for students. We rotated between breakfast duty, lunch duty, lunch detention duty, and after school detention duty, and we were all required to run a club after school one day a week and offer tutoring after school two days a week. The school building itself was crumbling, and our student population was at-risk and high-needs, with over 75% qualifying for free or reduced lunch. Oh, and most of the teachers were pretty new, with many of us having taught for five or fewer years.

Those first two years of my teaching career were grueling, and my career was all-consuming from mid-August through late June. As a result of the working conditions, staff morale was low. We might have been fresh, green teachers for the most part, but we quickly grew jaded, exhausted, and bitter. There were a lot of tears, and I specifically remember one of my more experienced colleagues who had worked in another state for nearly a decade telling us that this was not how teaching was supposed to be, that she was sorry we didn’t know any different.

When I joined the EMWP, I was actively looking for another job anywhere else. I thought I owed it to myself and my hard work for my degree to at least give it one more shot before giving up on teaching entirely. After all, when I could close my door on the issues in my school and ignore my exhaustion, I loved what I was doing. I loved teaching kids about great literature and helping them grow as readers and writers. Those moments were already becoming rare, though, as my mindset grew more and more negative. I was heavily leaning toward giving up.

And then that Summer Institute came. I got to know teachers from many different schools, both new like me and more seasoned veterans. I learned from them that what was going on at my school was not how it had to be. I was exposed to people who were positive and hopeful about teaching, rather than jaded and dejected. Not only were they hopeful, but they were curious and driven to improve, even those who had been teaching for more than twenty years. I saw a different future for myself.

I was fortunate enough to find a new job that summer. It still wasn’t a perfect fit for me, but it was better, and I always knew that I could look again if I needed to (which I did eventually). I started reading professional books on my own to try to improve my practice, and then I joined the teacher research group through EMWP.

I also started focusing more on my own writing. EMWP, and the National Writing Project as a whole, subscribe to the idea that the best teachers of writing are teachers who write, and one of the reasons I became an English teacher was because I loved to write. I hadn’t done much of it in those first two years.

I believe that a positive, supportive, and growth-oriented community is essential for teachers. Largely because of the influence of my EMWP community, I now have my Master’s Degree in English Studies for Teachers. I just had an article published in the Language Arts Journal of Michigan. I have a job that I love in a wonderful school district. I am a confident teacher-researcher and teacher-leader. I am a much better, more reflective, happier teacher than I would have thought possible in those first two years. And I know that I am still not done learning yet.