Why Teaching?

I am the product of my generation in so many ways. We were handed the world. With such limited direction. I entered college straight out of high school. I wanted to be a writer, the only thing, perhaps, that got me through adolescence. And I wrote a lot about the world as it existed in my tiny bubble. And I avoided attending classes, and I eventually dropped out. I lived among those like me: those struggling to find their place in the world, those wanting a little piece of immortality to claim as their own.

And then I had two babies.

And then the whole wide world opened up.

My children became my immortality. My children became my purpose and my meaning. They still are, and they always will be.

I started school again as a mother to a 2 year old and a nine month old, and I set out on a short-lived course to become a nurse. Somehow, it didn't fit. Then I was a history major, so inspired by my professors. Then, I wanted to be a mathematician and then a sociologist. And a lot of different things, too. I so love school.

When my daughter turned five and entered into kindergarten, I volunteered in her classroom. I volunteered for picture day and the book fair, too, and began seeing all children as I see my own. Each and every one someone's sweet baby. Then, suddenly, it was crystal clear.

It is my place in this world to affect the lives of children in a positive and meaningful way.

I am sure that like all educators and future educators surely believe, I have a special gift to truly connect to children. It is something between authority and being a child myself, but it is there. An unexplainable feeling, something deep inside. Moments when we smile at each other and that little person just knows...I care.

Last semester, I had a field experience in a fifth grade classroom. I have a somewhat difficult last name in this area, and so one little guy, "J," looked at me and said, "I'll call you Mrs. A." That was it. I had arrived.