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!
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