A Dream of Mine is Realized

On September 1, 2001 I moved to New York City to pursue a Masters Degree in Education.  I came here for a top-notch education, not because I particularly wanted to live here.  A few days later I began student teaching at a school on the Upper West Side close to my university.  It had a tough student population and I was in a first grade classroom with little real clue about what it took to be an effective teacher.

About a week later two airplanes flew in the World Trade Center while I was beginning to get my feet wet in the classroom and turned my stable world upside down.  I wanted to leave the city.  I begged my parents to let me come home.  They told me to stay put (a little odd right? considering the circumstances, but they knew well what I needed).  The rest of the semester was a struggle trying to connect with these little humans who talked about people jumping out of buildings like it was no big deal.  The head teacher I worked with had little confidence in me.  She left the classroom regularly when I took over the class and the kids, knowing she was gone, would go nuts.  My supervisor from the university was supposed to visit me eight times and provide me with feedback and support, but she rarely showed up.  At the end of the semester both of them gave me poor reviews.  My supervisor told me I would never cut it as a New York City school teacher. 

Amazingly I didn’t run away.  I took on a new placement in January with a wonderful, caring teacher who restored my confidence.  My new supervisor was top notch and gave me tons of advice and encouragement.  I met my husband for the first time that month and fast-forward 12 years and I am still here to this day!  I did end up “cutting it” in the city schools.  I think I actually faired wonderfully.

I always said one day I wanted to have the chance to be a supervisor to student teachers.  I would be everything like the one I had my second semester and nothing like the one I had first.  I wanted the chance to tell a future teacher that they could be a positive inspiration to a child, that they could speak life into their lives and perhaps even change it’s course.   Better, I believe that in a system that is gritty and hard and cynical, they could bring a smile to someone’s face, help a child know that they had a purpose, and be different than many people around them. 

In March I found out I was going to be a mama for the 4^th time, a role I never planned on.  The door I thought I would walk through this fall back into the classroom was closed.  I was discouraged.  But you know what?  God had a different plan for me.  First He needed me to focus more on my role as a wife and mother.  But He is gracious and He knows me and that I would love to have just a little more than just that.  Out of absolutely nowhere I was offered the position I had always wanted to do:  Supervising student teachers, and from a Christian college no less!  So now every Friday for a few hours I hang up my mama hat and head back into the schools and work with future teachers who feel the call on their life to be God’s hand of love extended.  It is rewarding beyond what I had hoped and I am so thankful!