Why the change?

But you have a good job? What a fulfilling job you have! Didn’t you go to school for that?

Do any of these statements sound familiar?

Well you’re not alone.

This blog is going to be a way for me to log my journey from one profession to a completely different one. Life has been changing so fast around us that no one can deny it might be a good time to assess what you are doing and why you are doing it. I dropped out of college years ago because I saw big student loans and no real direction for it. I asked myself, why would I get so in debt for something that I might not like or is not really useful in the real world. This sent me down the path of a trade school. This was great, until I lost the ability to continue that career. At this point family became a priority, (small humans will do that to a person).

Several years later, maybe it was to be a good example to my kids or the looming guilty I felt from my parental units. I decided to go back to school. This time I selected a profession I could be with my kids in the summer and would always be in demand, it also has good benefits with retirement. Yep, you guessed it, teaching. Not only was I going to be a teacher I was going to be a special education teacher! Why? Because I hated school as a kid, I would try to hide from the teacher calling on me, I wasn’t a good reader (later in life figured out it was dyslexia and Irlen), I spent a lot of my time hoping to not be noticed and called out on my struggles. I knew I was smart, but why was I struggling so much? Now if you look at my grades they weren’t bad, but I worked my butt off for them. Many long nights and tears at the dinning room table with my step-dad. Yes, my step-dad the one who wasn’t college educated, who grew up poor, probably shouldn’t of been much, he was the one who saw my struggle and made the complicated easy. Ok, enough of that drama, I did have a couple AMAZING teachers who helped me gain some confidence. In 6th grade, Mr. Thompson, the black cowboy who jumped on top of the desks and made sure to turn up the volume of the VHS movie about Eskimos while they ate fish eyeballs, (yes a TV with VHS, that dates me). The other one who also stands out, my Jr. High math teacher Mrs. DeLaugerheim, she helped find joy in Algebra and other things.

Ok, enough back story lets get to the point…

Education sucks. Let’s get one thing straight I separate education from learning. Learning is AMAZING and we should never stop learning and growing. The education system is…well…lacking at times. I have gotten tired of parents feeling it is their right to cus me or my team out for the fact that their child is struggling and some how it is my fault, even though this is first time I am meeting them and they are now in 5th grade… Let’s just say some of the problem is not with the school. I am also tired of the meetings that go nowhere. The hours of paperwork. My dream of working with kids who are struggling? Well not as Mary Poppins as one would hope. The breaking point for me, however, is seeing my own two kids struggle and I have nothing left in me at the end of the day to help them. Don’t get me wrong there are amazing teachers. I adored my co-workers, which made it hard to say I wasn’t coming back. I was going to give my position to an un-jaded teacher who would rock the world of special education.

So my change…

That little missing something inside me. To be creative again. To see the simple things in life. Taking time to sit on my porch just watching. Taking a breath. Realizing my kids are teenagers living in a crazy time. I was missing life for what is important.

Well the reassessment began.

Now a new chapter and a new learning. Come learn with me…