Because I stole this idea from Heather, AND we live the exact same (and yet totally different) life, I thought I'd share the same "moment" in her life that she did. The moment she knew she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up.
My decision to go into education actually came over two separate moments.
The most recent one (by recent I mean I decided two years ago) was made when I started reading Melody's blog. And Trina's. And then 5 Minutes For Special Needs launched. And I knew. I knew what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I really feel like it's a calling for me. I'm sure the 800 Special Olympics events I attended, and 6 million Challenger Division softball games I attended in my youth has something to do with it too.
When you've witnessed one person, who by all medical definitions is mentally retarded, look at someone (who also by all medical definitions is mentally retarded) and exclaim: "Are you RETARDED?!" in that "I can't believe you just did something that stupid" way that "normal" people do, it's hard to deny that those individuals are anything other than full of awesome.
The other moment, that made me change my mind from going into music education to elementary education happened my Senior year of high school. I was a cadet teacher in a 3rd grade classroom, and witnessed what can only be the described as the greatest argument ever presented by an 8 year old.
I was overseeing a table of kids, as they did a coloring activity. I don't remember exactly what it was they were doing, but I DO know that the palest kid in the class looked at another little boy and said:
If I colored you with my gray crayon, it wouldn't show up because your mommy is white, and your daddy is black, and white plus black equals gray.
The response he got back was NOT one he (nor I) was expecting. The other child said, with a completely serious face:
Oh yeah? Well if I colored you with my carnation pink crayon, it wouldn't show up because YOU are carnation PINK!!
And that was when I decided I didn't want to teach kids over the age of 8.
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3 Thoughts on This:
YOU are full of awesome. It only took a moment in a classroom for me to decide that a degree in education was a stupid direction to go...
Kudos to you, who are crazy enough to want to get into education. :-)
I like teaching kids stuff, but mostly stuff their parents wish they didn't know how to do.
Kids are awesome. Especially when they belong to other people. There is nothing better than these little moments.
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