Follow your passion!

For those of you who know me you know that I have a passion for what I do. I am so blessed that in the early 1970's I decided to be a teacher. I have been so lucky to have found my passion and my career all wrapped into one! Being a teacher for all these years has presented me with lots of paradigm shifts.

Today, being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs in the world. You have to make thousands of decisions every day, and any one of those decisions could change your life. You have to be a mult-tasker like no other, doing 10 - 20 things at the same time. You have to be mother, father, counselor, nurse, therapist, coach--all while making sure that each of the 22+ students in your class makes a minimum of a year's gain in 9 months. Teachers are true miracle workers.

No one can truly understand how glorious and treacherous our jobs are unless you have actually done our jobs. Don't sit at your business world desk and spout off about how we only work 9 months, that we have 3 months off in the summer, how we get off at 3:30 every day...don't even go there with us! We work more hours in a week than most of you. We NEVER get 3 months off and we do NOT get paid for the summer or the holidays that you constantly like to remind us we get! We get paid for our contract days and they divide that over 12 months. We deserve every penny we get.

Sorry! Had to get that off my chest.

Why do we this? Because we love it! We love seeing the little faces every morning, we enjoy watching the kids mature and develop, we rejoice when they "get it". It is true--when the light bulb goes on we feel so rewarded. Each time one of the little darlings hugs you, breaks out in a smile when they see you, confides in you--you just know you are doing the best job in the world.

I can only hope that my own two children get the same personal satisfaction from their careers as I have gotten from mine. I can truly say that the last 30 years as an educator has given me many fond memories. I look forward to many more before I retire.