Not Your Average Teacher: Atypical, LEGO Educator and Published

I’m not your average teacher.

It’s important to recognize I’ve worked and continue to work with some of the most amazing teachers you’ll ever meet. They’ve been dealt tough blows, they’re strong, and all have a story to tell. I believe I can learn from so many, who as Joe Kenda said on American Detective for investigators, “answered the call.”

I was never the average teacher for reasons I can share and reasons I cannot. For the life I’ve lived and the life I’ve yet to live.

I was not gifted-and-talented, struggled with social cues among people my own age, and with trust as I became more aware of my neuroatypcality. Growing up, I was the joke rather than participating in the joke. In May 2020, before the sudden death of my daughter, I saw the doctors’ paperwork over the course of one year in the early 1990s when I was in Kindergarten. They had recommendations regarding my atypical behavior, but in the 1990s, things were different, especially for a girl compared to now with my son’s autism and ADHD diagnosis.

I’ve been stunned and shocked as a young newspaper reporter by two car wrecks with bloody deaths in the time period of one week in October 2009. One of those was a middle school boy.

I was not your average teacher.

Throughout my life, I dealt with the struggle of playing teacher, but not wanting to ever be compared with my mom. As one teacher I spoke with a few weeks ago said, “Your mom is a legend.” Yes, by every right she is, as a Mock Trial coach and Criminal Justice educator.

But I could not ever become my mother.

So, I struggled with the two professional passions that do come naturally to me: writing and teaching.

I often separate the two, just as I compartmentalize my time in Corrie’s Garden and work at the cemetery for Corrie’s Memorial Walk. I try not to speak with those who know me too much about my writing because I never wanted to come off as having an ego, especially as someone who has struggled and learned with social cues.

But, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take pride in the fact I worked as a small town journalist and photographer, I’m an author, and LEGO Master Educator. Because at five-years-old, a doctor recorded that I had echolalic tendencies.

I used to feel ashamed of being somehow different, even as recent as six months ago. But, the fact is I’m an individual who overcame everything my parents were told by doctors that I wouldn’t or couldn’t do.

I use LEGO Education in my classroom because I remember what it’s like to struggle as a student. I’m a parent who will always grieve the loss of her daughter, Corrie, and will wear it with love and pride while continuing my mission to successfully raise a preteen son with autism. I will endure because that’s what I’ve done before.

I write all this to say:

There is life after loss. It may take a while to find it. If others judge you for your grief journey, you don’t need them in your life. Trust me. I’ve been there and know that.

I write this to celebrate who I am rather than grieve for who I’m not.

Today, I celebrate the fact my 20th piece of writing will be published in summer or fall by Cordella Magazine in its field notes’ section. “Some Mornings on the Farm” is the third poem from Corrie’s collection, When We Danced in the Rain, to be published.

I never announced it, but “Some Mornings on the Farm” is my second poem for publication this year, and the sixth poem since 2021. “The Drive to the Thrift Store,” a poem written about grief sometime in early 2021, was published in April of this year in Coneflower Cafe by the Choeofpliern Press.

Currently, I’m editing and writing a collection of poems called Road Sides, which will include “The Drive to the Thrift Store.” The oldest poem, in its original form, dates to late 2007. I’m still working on my YA novel, Rise of the Rinsed. This manuscript made the semi-finals of one contest last year, and the final rounds of another for novel excerpts.

I celebrate 20 publications.

I celebrate and embrace being atypical.

I honor and remember that grief does not define me, but is a part of me.

Most importantly, I’m blessed to have my boys. John has always supported my education and writing, and he is cancer-free as of this week.

Celebrate yourself, too. Celebrate your pride.

By Rebecca T. Dickinson