How Did This Happen?

How did I get here?

Two winters ago, an English teacher walked out of the high school and was run over by a car.

Another English teacher stepped in to fill her job and everyone in the 'food chain' shuffled up one step. This left a vacancy in the extracurricular programme of the primary school.

I applied.

I was summoned for an interview at the Municipality. I walked into a cramped office clutching my diplomas. The Head of Education sat at a desk covered in papers. He sat, I stood. He took my application with a grimace.

'So you want to be a teacher. But are you Qualified to be a teacher', he mused aloud, reaching for my paperwork.
'What's this?' he frowned at the first diploma, from Bucharest University.
'This is nothing' he snarled at the second, from Oxford University.
'Useless' he declared at the third, from a TEFL Institute in Edinburgh.

I was speechless. Now, having stood in front of full classrooms hundreds of times and having read some amazing books on education, I realise diplomas don't make a good teacher. But that could not be what my prospective employer meant. If he were that wise, why wouldn't he look at me, talk to me, find out why I wanted to teach? Why did he only want to see my diplomas?

He made to throw them in the bin, but at the last minute let them drop into the A4 infestation on his desk.

I was dismissed. I don't think I said anything more than 'hello', 'goodbye' and somewhere in between, a small reminder that it had been them who'd called me to apply.

A week later, they called again and said: 'When are you coming to sign your contract?'

Two days later, I started to teach.