DNA polymerase, transcriptome, amplicon, pyrosequencing…

I teach elementary school.

So far, much of what I’ve encountered in the lab has involved highly technical aspects of molecular genetics, all of which is completely new to me. I’ve been able to connect the work obliquely to important things my students need to know (scientific notation, microorganisms exist everywhere, many different people choose to become scientists), and I’m sure more connections will pop up once the back burner does its work. But those connections are of secondary importance.

Right now, the piece I will hold most dearly when I am once again with my students is the lost; the feeling of helplessness that pervades so much of my time in the lab; the frustration at trying to run full pace up a mountainside without a path, map, or proper shoes. I am grateful for Belen’s wise and patient teaching and for the support of lab mates Vicky and Cassandra. But I am a driven person, and the feeling of being the weak link gnaws at me. The mountain is as much my own ego as anything else.

As a specialist in gifted education, I work with students who are also driven. They, too, teeter on the brink between an all-consuming hunger for knowledge and a total, paralyzing fear of failure. Like me, they often veer towards safer passages rather than bushwhack their way through unknowns.

I think back to students who brought forth tears when pushed into that gray area. “I will hold you close,” I have said to them, “but there is no turning back. I need you to head this way.” I tell myself that now with each tiny new word added to my lexicon, each remembered step, each molecule of knowledge: each hard-won fingerhold en route towards the clear blue.