How It All Started

When I was very young, before I went to school, I had a number of different career aspirations.  Most notably I wanted to be a Firewoman, a Taco Dancer (from some commercial for a Mexican restaurant??), and one of Santa's Elves.

I'm not sure if it was my new-found knowledge of the fraudulency of the whole North-Pole thing, or if it was my kind and Grandmotherly Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Tait (her name made me think of Scotch tape), but by around age 6 I knew I wanted to be a teacher.

I spent my Grade 1 year painfully shy, slightly terrified of my teacher, Mrs. Duggelby, and borderline obsessed with chalkboards, marking things with red pen, and pocket charts.  Oh yes.....the pocket charts.  I do believe I asked for both pocket charts and laminators for Christmas.  No joke.  I could picture myself having a blue pocket chart up on my bedroom wall, where I could keep track of the date, the word of the day, and other important information all neatly printed in black marker on little rectangular cards....ah....sounds great, doesn't it?

We had a chalkboard in our basement at home and I spent hours down there (and our basement was CREEPY so this is saying a lot) playing school, usually alone since my big sister wasn't interested in being the student and clearly I needed to be the teacher!  I had a few old spelling books and readers that my Dad had scrounged up from the school where he was a custodian - likely from the pile of stuff teachers were getting rid of - and I would copy things onto the board, look out at my imaginary class, and it was bliss.

I remember watching my teachers like a hawk.  I wanted to know everything about them - who they were, what they did, how they spoke, how they wrote on the chalkboard....everything.  I can still list every teacher from my Kindergarten year all the way to Grade 8.  High School is a bit trickier, but if you gave me a few minutes, I bet I could remember most of them, too.

I had brief thoughts of other career paths, but that is all they were - thoughts.  Truly, there was never any doubt.  I remember a teacher in high school, after I read something aloud in the Remembrance Day Ceremony at school ask me if I had ever considered a career in journalism.  He told me I had "the kind of charisma money can't buy".  I took it as a compliment and thought "yeah, I could go into journalism".  But would I?  No.

In University I started with general studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, obtaining all my required courses for admission into the College of Education.  I enjoyed History, Political Studies, and Literature most of all.  I thought about Politics, Psychology and Law.  But, there was never any doubt, any real option.  It was always Education.

I look back now after nearly a decade in the classroom and I love it.  It is humbling, inspiring, motivating, and rewarding.  It is busy, demanding, challenging, exhausting, stressful, like a wild maniac juggling 800 sharp knives and fiery torches at once....or something.  Mostly I just love it.

I feel like I have a lot to say and a lot more to give, beyond the four walls of my classroom.  Though I have resisted joining the blogging world for some time, I think it might be just the format I need to help me begin to sort out my thoughts and start sharing them with the world.  : )