Why a Teacher?

Why a Teacher?

    When asked what made me want to become a teacher, I truly do not have an answer for that. I am sure that most teachers have that one person that truly impacted them into the moment of clarity that teaching was their calling, but I do not have that. Being homeschooled, I did not have the influence or experience from others saying I wanted to do it, but I always knew that I wanted to work as a special education teacher in a public school system. Always. For as long as I can remember if someone asked what I wanted to be that was the answer. Now my life didn't pan out just so and I am just now getting live out that dream, but I never stopped dreaming it. Even with all the hardships that I have had to face and overcome in my life and adulthood it didn't deter me. 

    When my husband had his accident and all the sudden, I was teaching a grown man how to walk and talk again, when I was helping with physical, speech, and occupational therapy daily, when I was changing his diapers because he couldn't get out of the bed or the wheelchair; for some people these things would have maybe scared them away from the realities of the caregiving side of special education but for me it was just another part of it. 

    Growing up I was exposed to teaching but not in the traditional since. I was in Girl Scouts, Church classes, and being taught through life experiences by my parents. This means that I learned constantly in different ways, but this also means that it prepared me for teaching in a Special Education Classroom because you have to think outside of the box very other in order to teach these children. 

    While I feel like I did not have a defining moment that I was called to become a teacher or a certain person that flipped the switch in me, but I trained my entire life for this.