I had to think back a long, long way to identify what drove me to be a
teacher. My parents always told me that I should be a teacher, that it
was a perfect career fit for me. Unfortunately at the time that these
decisions are actually made, I was at the height of my teenage angst.
There was no way I was going to follow the career path that my parents
had been suggesting to me for so many years. My mother was a teacher,
and at that point in my life I could only see myself as the polar
opposite of my mother. On the other hand, my grandmother whom I dearly
loved was a teacher before she became a business woman. I began my
quest for a career or a husband, whichever came first, in the
mid-seventies, when it was still a little bit strange for women to be
taking a career path.
I knew that I loved English and I
was drawn to kids, so I decided to become a child psychologist. Three
years later I had a BA in Psychology, but they changed the requirements
for a license to "hang a shingle on your office" to practice as a
psychologist. So, I married my college sweetheart and followed his
career and began a family.
Years later my kids were grown
and I yearned for a career. I entered the publishing business and
became a book buyer manager executive. When books became numbers or
widgits to some, and the meaningful discussion of literature succumbed
to the pressure of the bottom line, I had to look myself in the eye and
ask what I really loved about my career.
My passion is
for reading and sharing my love of reading with others. On further
reflection I remembered teaching my little brother to talk, and read,
and write and I had an AHA moment as I realized that I wanted to spend
he rest of my life sharing that love for the written word with children
and young adults. I have been teaching for three years now and I love every minute of it!
