Monday, July 23, 2012

My Teacher Story - Linky Party

My Teacher Story is probably pretty typical of many teachers.  My grandmother was a teacher in a one-room country school.  My mother taught fourth and fifth grades for her entire career.  My dad started out in the high school biology classroom and eventually ended up as provost of a community college.  I have many aunts that were teachers.  And, wouldn't you know?  I married a teacher who is now an assistant principal!  AND, his sister, brother-in-law, mother, and father are all teachers!  Needless to say, it is in my blood!

My parents tell me that, as a toddler, I would rush into the house after church and line up my stuffed animals and baby dolls to "teach" them my Sunday School lesson.  When I was five, my favorite birthday present was a large chalkboard to hang on the wall of my bedroom.  I remember accompanying my mom to the teacher store and shyly buying my very own EZ-Grader with my own money!  My best friend would come over to play school and we would carry around mugs with pretend coffee (Dr. Pepper) and use the textbook adoption samples that my mom brought home.  We felt so authentic lugging around those gigantic spiral teacher guides!

At some point in high school, I began to question whether I really wanted to be a teacher.  For a brief period, I told people that I was considering nutrition and psychology to work with people with eating-disorders.  I am sure that would have been a rewarding career but I was never that successful in my science classes so that would have been very challenging!

Although I was NOT going to be a teacher as I entered college, I still signed up for a multicultural education class in the fall semester of my freshman year.  After a few weeks of driving in to inner-city Chicago to tutor kids, I was hooked and ready to declare the major I should have had all along.  In Illinois, I had to pick 18 hours in one concentration outside of Education and my father, back in Texas, advised that Spanish "might" prove useful.  Ha!

The difference between a concentration and a minor was only 2 hours and then I learned that a summer spent in Spain would earn me the remaining hours for a major.  Seeing my double majors in Elementary Education and Spanish, the School of Education placed me in a bilingual teaching classroom for student-teaching.  I had never heard of bilingual education before but I promptly fell in love and have never looked back!  Thirteen years later (Yikes, I feel old!), I have absolutely no regrets and am so thankful for all of the people that have influenced and will influence my teacher story!

Visit Tales of Frogs and Cupcakes to read more Teacher Stories and submit your own!

4 comments:

  1. Great story, Candis! This is so neat and inspiring to get to hear everybody's background stories. Thanks so much for linking up and sharing!! :)

    Janaye
    Tales of Frogs and Cupcakes

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's interesting to read the back stories of other bilingual teachers, and the various ways we've ended up in this niche of education. Thanks for sharing! :)

    Stephanie
    Maestra Bilingue

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great story! I love the fact that most of us wated to be teachers since we were kids.
    Where did you lived when you were in Spain?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was in Spain for a total of eight weeks (not long enough!). We traveled for half of the time through Valencia, Sevilla, Galicia, Pais Vasco, San Sebastian, Madrid and Barcelona. We spent one month in Salamanca in language school and we did service work for a week at a camp up in the Pirineos. Such a beautiful, fascinating country! I hope to return someday with my family! Maybe we can have a blogger meetup! :)

      Delete

Join the conversation in English or español! You know you have something to say!