The decision to teach...

I started college in 2003, and wanted more than anything to be a psychologist.  Now, I had only one psychology class ever in high school and because the teacher was badass and super excited and all that stuff, I thought that I wanted to be like her and do psychology.  It was definitely interesting... I loved the classes I took, ended up taking a whole year and a half of psychology classes - intro to psych, child psych, abnormal psych, and educational psych.  Well I decided after taking child psychology that maybe I wanted to teach.  Thought about it for about a month - looking online, researching disabilities, asking other kids on my floor...and met with the director of special education, and changed my major.

I had some awesome professors at UMD.  They were totally into teaching and knew the answer to any question you had, were excited about more teachers wanting to do special ed, etc.  I remember one professor told us "This will be hard. It will be alot of work. But i know that you will all do it.  You want to teach special education.  Nobody who isn't willing to work hard would chose this job."  She was right - it was so much work. 

You started student teaching your junior year - 2-3 days a week, working up to your last grad school year teaching full-time.  You had to have experience in every setting.  We went to a specialized school and did feedings of children in wheelchairs, did a semester at an elementary regular ed setting.  I then chose one semester at a middle school self-contained class, a semester at a high school TAM setting, and a whole year at a high school self-contained class (2 different schools).

So after getting out of school (finally), I moved to Delaware and my teaching experience has been similar to my student-teaching.  My first year was awesome.  I got exactly the type of job I wanted.  I taught a middle school self-contained class.  It was a satellite program of the specialized school in the district.  The kids were amazing and I loved it.

Because I wasn't yet tenured, I wasn't rehired and had to wait until a job opened up for the following school year.  My principal found a job for me at the alternative school - and because there was little choice in the matter, I said yes.  It was the most challenging experience of my life.  I went to school for five years to teach, I knew all the latest practices, and my first year went great... but nothing could prepare me for the battle of teaching elementary emotionally disturbed kids.  From the beginning, it challenged my patience and character.  I'm the type of person that's calm, go-with-the-flow, nothing can go too wrong... But I couldn't be like that in this setting.  I'd go next door and complain to a co-worker that I sucked at my job, I can't do this, I don't know what to do, etc.  Of course I did it, and I felt successful around May and it was a good experience.  I have a whole new appreciation and think that if it weren't for certain circumstances, I could do it again.

Now, in my third year I am teaching at a high school, co-teaching with the regular ed. teachers.  It's really a great job and I am having a great time.  I'll be writing about my struggles and successes, so stay tuned.

I have my Masters now, and I plan to get my Doctorate in the future.  I really want to teach college classes, because if it weren't for the enthusiasm and knowledge that my professors gave to me, I wouldn't be so passionate about my job.  I want to do the same for other teachers-to-be.  It will happen sometime, after I have kids and they are in school... but it's a big goal of mine and it will get done no matter what it takes.

I'm a teacher.  The differences I make, no matter how few, are the reason that I can walk into work everyday with a smile on my face.  I love my job.  My dad is a retired teacher (taught middle school and college classes for 30+ years) and I think he lives by the quote "once a teacher, always a teacher."