Jobs and Careers | Marriage Confessions Jobs and Careers

I sort of fell into a teaching career. That’s probably not what the parents of my students want to hear, but it’s the truth. I always thought I’d be a lawyer, actually. But when Chris got into graduate school at Yale about two weeks after I was accepted to law school, I decided to go with him to Connecticut and to turn down law school. When we got to Connecticut, I worked in the legal field for another year before finally deciding it really just wasn’t for me.

So I took a job working at Yale in an administrative role. While I loved that job and my co-workers, my favorite part of the day was getting to interact with the students. I loved seeing them grow throughout the year. As the school year went on, they became more confident, more self-aware, more mature, and sometimes they even got a little smarter…

Two years ago when we moved back to Florida, I looked everywhere for a job in college administration, but I couldn’t find one to save my life. After months of job searching, my friend, Sarah, told me about a job opening at the middle school where she taught. They were looking for an 8th grade language arts teacher, and Sarah wanted to know if I was interested.

At that point, if it had been a zoo calling to ask me to teach their blind fruit bats how to read, I would have taken the job. We were in desperate need of a second paycheck. Miraculously, my saint of a principal hired me with a hunch that I “had what it takes.”

The week leading up to my first day of teaching was awful. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, could barely even speak. I had hated middle school and, up until that point, hadn’t really enjoyed most of the middle school aged kids I’d ever met. What the heck was I supposed to say to these kids? What did I know about literary skills and reading comprehension? Just between you and me, I wasn’t even exactly sure I could identify a pronoun in a sentence.

The morning I woke up for my first day, I showered, dressed, and drove to work in complete silence. My hands were shaking beyond belief, and I am sure my eyes were as wide as saucers. I walked into my classroom, looked around at the bare walls and thought, “What am I doing here?”

And then the first period bell rang. Students started filing into my classroom. The sound of middle school girls shrieking and middle school boys tumbling down the hall filled the air. And, suddenly, I relaxed. My hands stopped shaking, I started talking again, and instinctively I just knew what to do. Instantly, I was at home.

For me, teaching came so naturally and so quickly that after just a couple days, it felt like I had been doing it all my life. That doesn’t necessarily mean I am the best at it, but I’m certainly not the worst and I am amazed with every test my kids take that they are actually learning from me!

My students know I am new to teaching and so when we hit a lesson or a unit concept that I may not be so familiar with (the grammar unit always kills me!), I tell them right up front, “You and I are going to have to learn this together,” and then we do. Students make wonderful teachers. We’ve learned how to use commas, how to analyze poetry (not a favorite genre for me OR for them), how to write a clear introduction to an essay, and how to draw a plot diagram. And by the end of each unit, we are all so proud of ourselves for how much progress we have made.

Reading is a big part of my classroom. My students are required to read 30 books in my class by the end of the year. When I told them that on the first day of school, you should have heard the complaints. I thought they were going to throw pencils at me. “But Mrs. Brown,” they whined. “I’ve never read 30 books in my whole life, much less in a year!” “Me either!” I tell them, “But we’re all going to do it, so suck it up and start reading!” I teach 125 students. In the first semester, they read a total of 1,127 books. That averages out to nine books per student in eighteen weeks. In my classroom, they get a link on our reading paper chain for every book they read. This picture is from the first quarter, so it isn’t the full length chain, but my paper chain is now so long that it wraps around the ceiling of my classroom twice. I tell them the Fire Marshall is going to shut us down.

Every day they come into class telling me about what they are reading. They even send me emails to my school email address from their homes at night telling me how much they loved the book they just finished and how they can’t wait to tell me about it the next morning. Parents are going on and on about how they have to make their kids put their books away so they can do other homework. For students who had never read books for leisure before, they continue to amaze and inspire me. I find myself reading more just to keep up with them. In one of my classes, we all started reading the Harry Potter series together. Some of them finished before even I did, and every day we would compare where we were and what was happening in our novels. When I finally made it to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal last month, I took so many pictures to bring back and show my kids. I owe J.K. Rowling more than she’ll ever know just because of all the conversations she prompted between my students and me.

Teaching is about so much more to me than just paper chains and books and grammar. And I think it’s about more than that to my students, too. It’s about forming relationships with the kids and bringing that education to a place where they can use it in their lives. I think that is what I love the most about education. In order for it to be the most successful, you have to meet the students right where they are, and to do that you must learn enough about them to know where that starting place is. That personal relationship is something I never got from an office job.

I was always pretty successful in the corporate world, but there is nothing like the feeling of success when a student who has only read one book in their whole life suddenly completes their seventh book in one quarter. Or the feeling of success when a student who could barely put a sentence together writes a killer essay. That level of satisfaction only comes from working in a career field whose sole purpose is to make children better people.

In twenty years, my students will probably not remember how to use a comma correctly. In twenty years, I’ll probably NEVER know how to use a comma correctly. My students will probably not remember the short story we read that made me cry in class as I read it out loud and they laughed at me. My students will probably not remember me walking down the hall dragging 1,000 paper rings on a paper chain, stopping anyone who would listen as I told them how proud I was of my classes. In twenty years, my students may not remember me at all. But in twenty years, I will remember each one of them and the fact that they taught me how to be a teacher.

Are you longing to make a difference in the world through your career? If you’re interested in teaching or nursing, Capella University might be just what you’re looking for to kick off a fulfilling career. Capella offers a rigorous and supportive learning community that transforms your education into work that makes a difference in the lives of others. As a teacher myself, I can promise you that your degree will change more lives than just your own.

To see others stories like mine and to see what the Capella community has to say, visit them on Facebook or their Graduates page. To support teaching, literacy, and careers that make a difference, BlogHer will donate $1 (up to $500) for every comment left on this post to one of my favorite charities, “Reading is Fundamental,” which helps promote literacy and lifelong reading skills for kids. To help raise money for this wonderful cause, please leave a comment below telling me who your favorite teacher in school was and why.

Many thanks to BlogHer for supporting such a wonderful cause and to Capella University for promoting teachers, education, and careers that truly change lives.

Rules:

No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total donation entries by leaving up to two comments in response to the prompt on this post.

This promotion is open to US Residents age 18 or older.

The Official Rules are available here.

This promotion runs from 2/22/2012 – 3/31/2012.

Visit the BlogHer.com Capella page to check out more blogger stories!

76 comments | posted in Jobs and Careers, Marriage Confessions, Reviews | tags: Capella University, careers, jobs, teaching

Yesterday was a long Monday for me. Nothing particularly bad happened. It was just a long, stressful day. Aren’t all Mondays?

I woke up this morning and thought, “Today is going to be better.”

Nope.

I got to daycare, dropped Bean in his classroom, and then headed to Gracie’s room, like I do every morning. Only, as I turned to leave, Gracie’s teacher stopped me and pointed out that Gracie had a little rash on her mouth. Which reminded me vaguely of a pamphlet that had been sent home last week that said something about something about hoof and mouth disease. But feeling fairly certain that Gracie did not, in fact, have hooves, I had thrown the pamphlet out.

Turns out, you don’t need hooves to have hoof and mouth disease! It has it’s own special name for making people sick – hand, foot, and mouth disease. So, they kicked Gracie out this morning until a vet could confirm that her hooves were disease free.

I was already running late for work and couldn’t take a sick day because I hadn’t put in notice for a substitute, so Chris ended up having to stay home with Gracie. That started my whole day off wrong. After that, I got to work and realized I’d forgotten anything to drink (a serious mistake when you spend all day teaching and/or yelling over loud middle schoolers), so I stopped in the teachers lounge to get a drink out of the vending machines. Only, the vending machine guy must have filled the machine wrong because when I pushed Diet Dr. Pepper, I got a real Dr. Pepper. No diet. Which normally wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I was already pissy.

So, now I’m late, out of sorts, and pissy. I was getting mail out of my school mailbox about 10 minutes later, I opened my drink as I walked and the entire bottle spewed out all over me. Perfect.

Now, I was late, out of sorts, pissy, and sticky. Great.

I got through two class periods before I finally realized the lesson I had planned for my students today was going really badly. They weren’t ready for it and so I was dragging them through the material (no fun for them or me), so very quickly before any other classes came in, I rearranged my lesson plans and threw together a better lesson that wasn’t so complex. If you’re a teacher, you understand how much changing plans in the middle of the day can really get you off kilter. Actually, I guess anyone can understand that – when you plan to do one thing and then have to change your plan midstream. It really flusters you.

So, by fifth period, I was still running perpetually late, out of sorts, irritated, sticky, and flustered.

I got to lunch and realized that I had packed the worst lunch ever. Lettuce in a bowl. Seriously. No toppings, dressing, anything. Just lettuce in the bowl. And I had forgotten a fork to eat it with. The crappy lunch is due to the fact that I must have been daydreaming for the hour I went grocery shopping this weekend because we have NO FOOD in our house! I don’t know what the heck I bought because I spent the same amount as always, but there’s nothing in the cabinets or fridge! I did things like buy more pasta (which we already have tons of), but forgot the spaghetti sauce… ????

Anyway, my bad lunch meant that I was not perpetually late, out of sorts, irritated, sticky, and hungry.

When I got home, I was so happy to see Gracie and was relieved to hear the doctor had said she did not have hand, foot, and mouth disease. However, when I put Bean to bed tonight, I did noticed a small little rash had appeared on his mouth. Freaking great.

Some days, I have it all together. I leave home without Cheerios in my hair. I get everyone to where they need to be on time and with shoes on. I feel successful and fulfilled at school. I get dinner on the table and the kids in bed at a decent time.

But then, there are the other days. Today was an other day. I would like a do-over, please.

31 comments | posted in Around the House, Jobs and Careers, Marriage Confessions, Random, Understanding Katie | tags: bad days, life

Chris’s job isn’t like most other jobs. He is the general and production manager at a regional theater here in Orlando and a large part of his job is overseeing the technical aspects of the plays they produce. Normally, this job can be done in a typical 9-5 work day. When he was in grad school, he was the one who did the actual designing and building of scenery. And that job is time intensive. Lots of working through the night to get a set ready to for actors the following day. As a manager now, though, Chris doesn’t really have to put in those kinds of hours anymore. That’s actually the reason he took the job he has now. With two little kids at home, we were looking for a job where he wasn’t tied to the theater at all hours of the day and night and this position was the perfect fit.

But once a month, Chris has to work technical rehearsals. It’s called “working tech.” At these rehearsals, they aren’t running through the play itself, they are running through the play from the technical aspects. They go through all the lighting and sound cues, all the set movements, all the costume changes, etc. And that takes a LONG, LONG time. As the production manager, Chris is at most of these tech rehearsals, just in case there are problems with anything technical and to make sure everything goes smoothly. On those weekends, he works “ten out of twelves,” which means that out of twelve hours, he is working ten of them. And that goes on for two, three, sometimes four days. It’s a long process, even when things are running smoothly. But for the show they are working right now, things aren’t going so great and so an already long process has become grueling. He didn’t come home last night until 3:00am and then he was back up at the theater by 9:00 this morning.

It’s hard on all of us when he’s working these kinds of hours. I miss having him around, to help with dishes, to help put the kids to bed, to cozy up on the couch with after bedtime. The kids really miss having him around, too. Even though it’s just for a couple days, they only get to see him once or twice a day for half an hour or so. Bean asks about him when he’s gone and Gracie…well…she gets so excited when she finally sees him that it’s like she’s just been sitting there waiting for him to walk in the door.

But out of all of us, it’s Chris who has it the worst during tech. Not only is he working really long hours, but he really misses us, too. He calls and texts me all day, asking what we’re doing. He comes home any time there is a chance, even if it’s just for 20 or 30 minutes. Sometimes, it takes him longer to get home than he has to stay. Basically, he’s just beat.

(Look, they have the same cowlick!)

Chris has one more day of tech left and I think we’re all ready for him to come home. When he’s working like this, I try to make things easy for him at home. I bought some of his favorite snacks at the grocery store today – pretzels, Barq’s Root Beer, Velveeta and chips for cheese dip. I make a lot of plans for me and the kids, so we’re not just sitting around waiting, because when I sit around and wait, I get pissed. Even when I have no reason to get pissed. So, we stay busy. My mom came down and spent all day with us Saturday and then she babysat Saturday night while I went out to a jewelry party with a new friend (post coming soon about my new awesome jewelry and my attempt to make friends…). Then, today we made rainbow rice and went for a two hour walk around our neighborhood. Tomorrow we have a play date. Busy, busy, busy.

Sometimes, marriage is about love and passion. Sometimes its about going through things together, side by side. And sometimes, it’s about being the safe place to come back to after life beats you up for a few days on a theater stage.

29 comments | posted in Around the House, Communication, Family, Husbands, Jobs and Careers, Marriage, Marriage Confessions | tags: Family, life, Marriage

I am thankful for the home that we live in and for the lives that we will build here.

I am thankful for a job that makes me smile every day and for the middle schoolers who allow me to be part of their world for a little while.

I am thankful for a church that teaches about the power of prayer, the importance of family, and the strength of faith.

I am thankful for friendships that make me a better person.

I am thankful for the readers who come back here every day to journey with me, without judgment, expectations, or demands.

I am thankful for just enough money in the bank each month.

I am thankful for family who send funny emails, inappropriate texts, and who are worth everything we’ve been through to live close to them again.

I am thankful for an incredibly smart, energetic, innovative, and funny two-year-old son who reminds me every single day that life is just good.

I am thankful for the beautiful smiles, nighttime cuddles, and incredible happiness that my seven-month-old daughter brings into my life.

I am thankful for the person who kisses me every morning, says he loves me every night, and stands beside me every day.

I have a lot to be thankful for this year, but above all of those things, I think I am most thankful for the trials and tribulations in our lives because, through those experiences, I have learned to be thankful for everything else.

Wishing you and your family all the blessings of thankfulness,
Katie, Chris, Michael, and Gracie