I feel very fortunate to have found my life's calling at a very young age. My preschool teacher pulled my mother aside at my preschool graduation and told her that she knew I was going to be a teacher. How preschool teachers can see those things, I will never know. They have a true gift when it comes to working with a group of young children. When all I hear is whiny voices and see snotty noses, they see teachers, firemen, presidents, and doctors. As I grew up, I practiced teaching without realizing I even wanted to teach. I was a Sunday School and Vacation Bible School teacher in my church. My high school even voted me most likely to become a teacher out of our whole senior class. At
Central College, I played around with becoming an anthropologist, but always came back to teaching. I had some amazing experiences in college that I believe deeply affected the kind of teacher I am today. One of those happened my sophomore year; I was offered a job at a youth shelter as a youth worker. I supervised a 15 bed residential facility for an 8 hour shift 4-5 days a week. I worked with some of the most difficult children in my life, but loved every minute of it. I was making a difference in their lives. When I graduated from Central, I made the difficult decision to leave the facility and pursue my teaching career.
I started my teaching career determined to work in an
alternative school setting. I did not have the most successful experience in my student teaching position. The teacher negatively judged my "unorthodox" teaching styles, like
project-based learning,
constructivism, and
choice theory. He wanted me to teach the class his way, using all his curriculum. When I refused to lecture and test he told me I was not accepting of his guidance. I also hated going into the teacher's lounge. The whole lunch time the teacher would sit there and complain about their students. I quit going to the teacher's lounge for lunch and was docked points for not being welcoming and open with my co-workers. Needless to say, this did not put a good taste in my mouth for traditional schools.
Of course, there were no postings in the paper for an opening in an alternative school the summer I graduated. So, I sent my resume to all 99 alternative schools in the state begging for a job, any job. I called all the local alternative schools and that is where I found
Walnut Creek. To make a long story short, I was hired on the spot for their one opening: a special education associate, not teaching, but I was thrilled to be in the door!! This led to a night school teaching position and a home bound teaching assignment. I was hired the next year as a full-time BD Self-Contained Teacher. Two years later, I transferred to the General Education Social Studies position and three years after that transferred to the position I currently hold, half-time social studies and half time tech. Every job I have been in, I believed at the time was my dream job and it just kept getting better.
This leads to my life's purpose.....I grew up in south central Iowa, on a farm outside of
Lacona; a small town full of farmers and commuters and a couple small businesses. Needless to say, I was not exposed to many different cultures in this little town, but I loved every minute of it and still live outside of Lacona today. However, I had amazing parents that took me all over the United States as well as to Canada and Mexico each summer. I saw and experienced things my class mates only saw on TV or in books.
As a social studies teacher I knew I wanted to give my students the same experiences that my parents gave me and more, I wanted to make them become international students of the world. I started small, attending a few conferences, making connections and gathering materials. Along the way, I met my heroes:
Jane Elliott,
Michele Soria, and
Sherry Gupta. These women guided me along the way and helped me to create the educational experiences I wanted for my children, including field trips, summer camps and new classes. Through the
UNI cohort, I have met two more people that have joined my list of heroes:
Vicki Davis and
Julie Lindsay, co-founders of the
Flat Classroom. I had already been following Vicki's blog for a couple weeks, but had not idea the impact she and Julie would make on my life. They have given me my new path, another fork in my road along my journey of preparing my students for the global world they are going to be living in when they graduate from high school. I have already joined the Flat Classroom wiki and am so excited for my future and the future of my students. It is so amazing to be living my life's dream and meeting such inspiring people!
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