Teaching is not what I do – it is who I am!

 

 

Once there was a little girl.  She loved to line her dolls and stuffed animals in front of the blackboard her grandfather had built for her.  She spent hours laboriously drawing lines in notebooks to use for attendance and grades.  She scavenged every extra page of work that her teachers were going to throw out.  She brought all of these together and “played”.

Once there was a teenager.  She spent time with clubs and sports like most kids her age. She dragged piles of books home from school with her every day, not because she was such a dedicated student, but because she spent every spare minute and study hall “helping” peers and little kids in the lower grades.  She decided to go to college to “learn” how to become a teacher.

Once there was a college student.  She attended a two-year community college.  When it came time for her to transfer, she wanted to go into special education, but she listened to her advisers and decided elementary education was “less risky”.  She worked hard (most of the time) and learned the tools of her trade.

Once there was a college graduate.  She substituted when she first came home from college.  She was scared and hesitant, but she continued learning.  She was offered a position as a teacher’s aid at a special education pre-school.  She loved the work and got positive feedback from peers, students, and administration.  She lived at home and couldn’t afford anything else; finally her mother said it was time to “grow up” and get a “real job” (i.e. one that would pay the bills) because she was an adult now.

Once there was a young adult.  She was hired as a therapy aide at a local psychiatric center.  She made a decent salary, but before she could return to her education, she fell in love, got married, and had babies.  Dreams are sometimes put on hold for a while.

Once there was a young mother.  She realized that her present job wouldn’t mesh with motherhood.  She quit her job with the decent salary to return to a job that that she loved, she subbed; hoping to finish her education part-time while she raised her family.  Her husband decided that he also needed a career change, so she found a job that would pay the bills and delayed her dream awhile longer.  Soon the marriage failed and making a living became the focus of her life.

Once there was a woman approaching mid-life.  She was good at her job, but she wasn’t happy.  Her children were getting older and didn’t require as much attention.  She felt that she had to give her dream one more try.  She bit the bullet and started back to school.  School hours didn’t mesh with work hours, she knew that if she gave up again, she would never realize her dream, so she quit her job and gave her all to her dream.  She received her degree, but that still wasn’t good enough.  The dream remained close, but still out of reach.  

Once there was a woman who at a point when most people start seeing retirement in the not too distant future finally realized her dream.  She found a job doing what she had always wanted to do.  True, it wasn’t the dream she had envisioned at the start of her quest, but it was where she belonged.  Again, fate threw a twist into the plot.  The facility where she taught closed after a four-year tenure and she had to start over again.

Once there was a woman who would not be denied.  She left her family and moved 1200 miles all in pursuit of that dream.  The kids were tough, the pay was low, but she continued on in spite of that; because she was again close to living her dream.  

After only a year and a half, the dream came true. She interviewed for a Reading Teacher position but decided that she would just stay where she was and as she told the panel her decision, one said jokingly,

“Well, we could always give you the autistic classroom”.

“You’re kidding right??  You’d just ‘give’ me an autistic classroom??!!??”                          

 “You mean you’d seriously consider THAT???”

… and she finally had her dream job!  She took a test and just like that, she had a piece of paper that said she was a certified K – 12 SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER!!   Dreams are fleeting. At the end of her third year (just before she would be tenured) funding was cut and she again found herself unemployed.  

Now she continues on, back in NY (where she grew up) trying to re-capture a piece of the dream; by combining teaching and learning with another dream of writing.  A friend and mentor said in his book Dream Your Life Amazing (Bill Ebert pg 43) “Write your plans in chalk, then hand God the eraser”; and so I continue to teach and learn, while I explore this new world of blog writing.  I hope you enjoy my journey.