As a kid, I lived for the days I got to go to “Special Art” where we could paint and draw and sculpt in clay. I lived for that time to go sketch. I’d sketch on my papers while I daydreamed, and I’d be asked to recopy that work. It was too messy, according to the requirements. My room was always messy and I was always creating things at home. I loved any chance to create, but the chances were few and far between in school. Worksheets bored me. A lot.
As a college student, majoring in pre-med, I loved science, but some time volunteering in a classroom was magical. The kids. The excitement. The smell of crayons. Passion was born instantly. Passion fueled by what I craved in school as a child and what I hoped I could make school into for my own students. I must have been naive. I think I thought I’d do it all, in year 1. I was wrong.
As a first year teacher, in an urban school, I thought I needed to be an expert. I needed to know everything and be everything. Most of all, I needed to show my students love and respect. I did, and they gave it right back to me. I worked so incredibly hard to answer all the questions and keep my class under my control. I was finished learning because I had a college degree. I was wrong.
Then I found myself teaching in the very school I grew up in. Working in the same classrooms that I once attended. I was back. I was going to make things better than what I had. I wanted school to be exciting– for every kid. Questions, wonder, challenge. I learned about inquiry. I explored technology integration. I fell in love with being a learner all over again.
For years, I’ve been the parent of a girl who’s struggled to find her way. Lost in a system of education where few understood her, but she tried. She tried so hard. They tried, too. She taught me so much about learning, about myself, and about what it is like to love someone so much it hurts. To send a piece of your heart off to school each day and wait for the phone call that she’s struggling. To want to fix something so badly, knowing you can’t. And to learn that it’s never about fixing anyway. I was wrong.
As a fourth grade teacher I was led out of the regular classroom by a strong desire to teach outside the box. Thinking differently, teaching differently, and building a classroom around inquiry. Away from textbooks, away from pacing guides, away from over-tested days. I went to the one place where I could explore, tinker, challenge the kids, and challenge myself. I wasn’t an expert and I never will be. I was the learner my kids needed. The more differently I wanted to teach, the more I realized I didn’t fit in. So I left the regular classroom.
As a gifted education teacher, my days were focused on creativity, innovation, supporting kids. Personalized learning became my focus and my drive. I saw my kids thrive when they were connected with the world. I witnessed what happened when I stopped saying, “Let’s do that later,” and started saying, “Why not? Go for it.” I took risks and I failed, a lot. But in that failure was something amazing. An 11 year journey in the school where I grew up, and the school where I grew as a teacher. I, ironically, had grown back into a learner. It felt right.
As a dreamer, I took a risk. I followed my heart and what I believed in. In the process I gained more than I ever thought possible. I didn’t get what I thought I wanted, but I got so much more. My daughter found her place. I found mine. And my husband? He’s the guy who never stops supporting me. I was right about him.
We’re home. I spend my days at the intersection of everything I believe in, everything I’ve been through in my life as a teacher and my life as a learner. Everything I dream of. Everything that keeps me awake late at night and motivates me to work even harder each day. Creativity. Innovation. Supporting Teachers. Supporting Kids. Something to pour my passion into. Surrounded by people whose passion fuels the fires of learning, too. When I think about the teachers I work with, I want to support them in the way that I would have like to be supported. When I look into kids eyes, I don’t want any of them wishing for creativity like I did. Starved. As a mom, I know what it means to have someone support your child. I want that for kids and for families. I know how that has changed our family’s life, and I never take that for granted. Not for one second.
The journey is never easy. It wasn’t easy as a kid, it wasn’t easy as that first year struggling teacher, and parenting, well, I’m still figuring that out on a daily basis. I hope none of it ever gets “easy.” Because that means I’m too comfortable. It also means I’m finished learning.
And that? It’s a point I never want to reach. This intersection, of experiences, learning, and dreams feels like the kind of place where it all has meant something. Every struggle. Every triumph. Everything. Purpose. It makes me question why I was ever so afraid of failure in the first place. Risk can lead to pain, but it can also lead to a better path. And that path? You just might find yourself at that intersection where purpose exists.
If my heart were a GPS, that’s exactly where it would take me. And I’m here. And it feels awesome.