Made It!

It has been a whirlwind year for me. I made it to the end of my first year of teaching. It's difficult to explain what a teacher does, but it would be erroneous to assume that teachers just teach their content area.

I'm glad that I consider myself a mom first and foremost, because there's a lot of mommin' that happens when you are a teacher. Then, there's a lot of clerical work and meetings with parents. Maybe it's a little different for general education teachers, but this has been my experience as a special education teacher.

At the beginning of the year, I was purely overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that I was supposed to know but wasn't taught in college. I came home ugly-crying frequently and asking how I could have made such a terrible mistake as agreeing to be a teacher for the next three years.

As the year progressed, things did get better. I built relationships with colleagues and took a lot of pride in my students' growth. I was surprised at how quickly the weeks passed. It's certainly a fast-paced environment.

In 2004, I was enrolled in college to become a high school teacher. However, Louisiana just did not pay well enough for everything to teachers had to endure, and I changed majors. I majored in Heritage Resources and Cultural Anthropology, which boils down to management and critical thinking skills. Then, I was a full-time mom and military spouse. Since 2004, I have worked many different jobs and garnered many skill sets. All of that, plus my yoga practice, has formed into a person who has enough life experience and compassion that I truly am ready to be a teacher, now.