I am in the stages of preparing for the two exams that would allow me to teach English and be “highly qualified”.  In doing so, I need to expand my knowledge of the literature “frequently taught in high school”.  Some of it I know (the Hobbit, Romeo & Juliet, Scarlet Letter), some I knew (To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, Our Town), some I have secondhand knowledge of (Great Gatsby, The Crucible, A Streetcar Named Desire), and some I just don’t know (Joy Luck Club, Grapes of Wrath, Great Expectations).  I want to bring my “knew-it” stories back up to the surface, get a fuller picture of the “secondhand-knowledge” stories, and get a few clues on the “don’t-know-it” stories.  I’m not well-read enough.  I doubt Orson Scott Card and Asimov will be on the tests (though Tolkein and Orwell could be).

Now I pause to laugh at the idea of me being “highly qualified” to teach English classes.  Sure, I am probably as qualified as anyone to teach a high school creative writing class (the reason I’m taking the test), but not literature.  I can’t analyze a poem to save my life.  Looking at my expertise in math and comparing it to my background in literature, it’s a joke to think I can teach the latter.  I simply can’t.  It’s a phantom status that means nothing.  A properly trained and educated English teacher would kick my butt in the teaching of…well, anything.  Grammar, lit, literary movements, authors…  The only thing I have is a reasonable knowledge of what it takes to sell a manuscript.  Even that is pretty narrowly focused.  (Note that knowing how to sell and actually selling are two different beasts; I have some of each.)  So I can teach how to write and how to sell, even how to use grammar, but that shouldn’t qualify (highly or not) me to teach literature.

Why the rant?  well I have this fear that one day I’ll have to teach an English class.  I get forced into enough math classes I don’t want to teach (anything full of failure kids or non-college-bound students is like herding radioactive tomcats), I don’t need to free myself up to gain new classes I don’t want.  I do want to teach the writing — why else would I take the test? — but not a regular English class.  Shouldn’t the desire to teach be part of the “highly qualified” formula?