Mattison M. Casaus

Because there are no six feet tall ballerinas

At the beginning of each semester, I ask my students to write a literacy narrative with the unspoken knowledge that I have never written my own narrative. So here it goes. Since the age of three, it was always about dance. Ballet to be more specific. That is what I aspired to do up until my Freshman year of college when those thoughts of being on a New York stage started to change. I was so passionate about dance that I made it all the way to dancing for a collegiate dance team. But the choice was gradual. I can not think back to a specific epiphany-like day, but I did start to consider what else I loved to do. Maybe it was the fact that I had a back injury my Freshman year, maybe it was that I found another college organization I liked better, or maybe it was the biggy, which is that there are no six-feet-tall prima ballerinas. I was always that “Tall One”, and no, I’m not exactly six feet, but I am close. So, I became the “Tall One”  in every single dance class, every single performance, and every single year I just seemed to get taller and taller. It is not to say that I was not good or that I stopped liking dance, it’s just that I started to have thoughts of what else I could do.

So I brought you on this journey to tell you about my other passion. Literacy. I’ll start with I am not the biggest book worm on this planet, maybe you thought that is where I was going with this, but do I love to read? Of course! Is that where you will most likely find me at home; curled up, reading, in what I call my “cave”? Yes! So that was it. I knew I was into reading and writing. I was the kid that was excited to go to the school book fairs. I was the kid that went to the Barnes and Noble releases for the upcoming Harry Potter books, and I was the kid that wanted to be like my mom, who was always reading something. I can recall speeding through almost every young adult fiction series in hopes that the author would quickly write another. I didn’t always love school growing up, but I always excelled in my English classes, and looking back on it, those were the teachers that I remembered the most.

Like I said before, I’m not sure what day it was that I changed my mind, but I knew I wanted to teach. I not only wanted to teach reading, but writing too. Now what age do I teach? If you take one look at me, actually, if you hear one high-pitched yet calm word out of my mouth, I promise that you will guess that I am a Kindergarten teacher, but no. Not for me. One thing I knew I was good at was taking English classes, so I continued to do so all the way up to a Doctorate in Education. I now have a job that I absolutely love as a college writing instructor. I get to read for a living. No, it’s not the next great American novel, but it’s my students’ writing, which proves that what I am teaching is actually coming through to them. I always say I’m my students’ biggest advocate, and if I can share just a bit of my love for literacy with them, then it’s all worth it.

p.s. If you happened to be in my kitchen on a Saturday night, then you would see that I still dance. (It’s just now to every Disney song out there with my three-year-old daughter.)

-December 2023