Hi Ben,
A few days left in the semester, and I’m finally feeling that I’d like to share a bit about my journey with folks on the blog. This community has been such a huge source of support and inspiration as I’ve entered this new profession over the last couple of years. You and Laurie and Sabrina and others have offered wisdom and help in a hundred different forms. So, in case it’s interesting to anyone, here’s my story…
When I crashed and burned and quit my first job after six weeks, I thought that I was not meant to teach after all. When I finally picked myself up off the floor, I noticed that I was still ravenously reading every post on the blog every night. Then after being rejected from a couple of officey job applications, I realized that I really wanted to go back and be a sub for a while. I learned a whole lot as a sub. I got to spend time in every nook and cranny of every school in the district, and meet everyone from intensive needs to AP-level students. Then I got an office temp job that was too good to turn down, and did that for a few months. Over the summer I realized that I really wanted to get back to the classroom, but couldn’t find a job teaching Spanish, so I became a 1:1 paraeducator in a kindergarten classroom. I LOVED that job. I loved the kindergarteners. I think that kindergarteners are actually my spirit animals (as my current students would say). In the winter of last year, my wife suddenly moved out. By spring, we were signing divorce papers and I was interviewing for my dream job at the local high school. The day I went for my interview, I took a half day away from the kindergarten. When I returned, the students saw me at the door and came spilling out of the classroom to greet me. They surrounded me with hug that was four kindergarteners deep, and I remember looking down and seeing them as a life preserver around my waist.