"For me it was the beginning of a long journey. Long journey, oh how those words don't even begin to convey the truth...exhausting, challenging, overwhelming, lonely, intense, and long, yes, it's been a LONG journey!"
That writing above is from my last post. I reviewed the post, hit PUBLISH and immediately realized the 'exhausting, challenging, overwhelming....' part gives a false impression. The journey WAS all those things, but mostly... it was an unknown, lonely and alien path.
Have you ever been on your journey of life and in the back of your mind thought everything was hunky-dory or normal; on autopilot? Yes, I was on autopilot until W H A M! I slammed head first into a MAMMOTH wall.
Simply put, the path of my life suddenly diverted from autopilot to grad school for a master's degree in special education. Meanwhile, life took a thousand twists along the mountainous path of raising my four children by myself. Here you can insert EXHAUSTION!
At one point I quit grad school out of frustration. Learning the history and theories of education didn't seem relevant anymore. Eventually God turned my heart around and I was back in school. It took me more than a few years to get that master's degree, but I did it! Before the ink had dried on my diploma my phone was ringing and I had a request to interview for a special education position. After one interview I found myself heading to the classroom, this time as a teacher!
I'm forever grateful for that opportunity to work in elementary education. It was a new road to say the least (after all my bachelor's degree is in applied science, agriculture, emphasis on horticulture, where my favorite saying was, "I like working with plants because they don't talk back! HaHa!)
Working on a master's degree, holding down at least one job and substitute teaching pre-school through high school, raising my kids by myself, while maintaining a house and eight acres was absolutely exhausting but oh, so worthwhile.
You see over the years I knew my kids learned in a different way. My true journey had begun with my own children when I realized their strengths and weaknesses in learning. Finding the best way for them to learn to read, write, do math, had been my first goal. DYSLEXIA back then was not an unheard of thing. Unknown no: forbidden describes it more clearly.
Finding myself as a teacher would mean that for the first few years I'd be back on autopilot, until I couldn't stand it anymore!
