This is Me: The road to Teaching

This is me, this is my blog. I chose to write about my journey in education because it has been a life changing experience, both positive and negative. This is just my story, a little about me to get us started....

I want to teach because I want to help children control their disabilities and behavioral issues so that they can succeed in life and lead a normal life. I don't share this with many people, but I have a learning disability,ADD, and I have also been diagnosed with mild Asperger's syndrome. My SLD is identified as being in math, and the specifics of it state that I have a disability known as Dyscalculia, which means that I have problems processing and understanding math equations, counting, grouping, etc. Math has always been a problem for me, I've never liked math. When I was a child, I had problems making friends as well, and problems with social skills. As I got older, the social skills improved, and I eventually matured and sort of grew out of that disability. But my disability with math has always plagued me, even to this day, the fact that I am on your roster, and in your class is a miracle, because I almost did not pass the math portion of the Praxis Core. I took that portion of the exam 11 times. My ADD on the other hand, is controlled for the most part. I've taken every kind of medication for ADD that there is at one point or another. When I was diagnosed, they didn't have the developments of diet changes, and other natural forms or ways of controlling the disability, they just had medication. I spent 10 of my 12 years of grade school taking medication, and hated every minute of it. I knew this wasn't the way I wanted to live my life forever, so I quit taking it. With the help of a nutritionist, and the school counselor, i managed to learn to control my disability. I changed my diet dramatically, no soda, no fatty foods, and little white starches; and after awhile, I started to notice the positive effects, I noticed that I wasn't grumpy or irritable all the time. With the help of the counselor, I learned to recognize my "triggers", or the things that prevented me from doing my school work, or staying on task with anything. For a long time, I couldn't be anywhere around a television while I was doing homework or studying because I would end up watching TV rather than doing my homework. I also couldn't be near a window, or around other people. I had to sit in a quiet room, with the blinds closed in order to get any work done. Procrastinating, or not finishing one project before I started another was also a big problem for me, so I learned to sit and make myself finish the project or the assignment completely before I got up to do something else. To this day, I'm still like that. I can multitask with some things, but most things I have to do one thing at a time, so as a result I'm a pretty fast worker. As an adult, I have "perfected" the way I work, so I have taught myself how to block out certain things, like the TV or music, or even people. So, I can sit in the living room with my husband, while he's watching a loud football game and still do my homework efficiently because I've learned how to tune it out. I've learned how to overcome my disability. This story, my story, is why I want to teach. 

I've wanted to teach since I was 12 years old. I knew that there wasn't anything else I wanted to do, and I knew I wanted to teach Special Education. I knew I wanted to help kids like me reach their potential within themselves. I knew I wanted to help kids realize that they CAN do it, they can succeed, because I did. I want my future students to know that they can do anything they put their minds to, no matter the obstacle, no matter how hard it is. 

I have several teachers that affected me positively. I guess the first teacher that I can remember that helped push me was my preschool teacher, Mrs. C. She was a big influencer in my ability to read (which has never been a deficit for me) and to this day I truly believe that she is one of the reasons why my language development was so great when I started school. When tested in kindergarten, I tested three levels above the other children in my class. 

Another teacher that influenced me positively was my middle school math teacher, Mrs. C. I think early on, she saw that I had the potential to be good at math, but I needed someone to encourage me, and she was that person. So everyday after school, she tutored me in math, and with her help I ended up passing 6th grade math with an A. It was the first A I had ever received in math, and my whole family felt like we had all just landed on the moon or something. We were all so happy that I had passed with flying colors. From that moment on, my mother would not let me use my disability as an excuse to not make good grades in math. 

The biggest influences over my education were my high school math and band teachers. It's a tie between the two of them, because my math teacher helped me grow academically, but my band teacher helped me grow socially, emotionally, and she helped me grow as a person. My math teacher, Mr. B., knew from the very beginning that I needed extra help, and he worked with my mother to hone in on my academic strengths to better help me in math. I worked with him before school, after school, and at lunch my 10th, 11th, and 12th grade years in order to pass math, even after I quit being his student in class. He knew my disability well, because he has a child who struggles with the same sort of issue, so he knew directly how to help, and I felt comfortable going to him because not only did he help, but he never let me give up, even when I wanted to. I ended up with an A in math all three years. I credit him directly for my good grades, because without him I wouldn't have been able to do it.

My band teacher, however, helped me in many other ways. At the time, I knew her as Ms. S, but since then she has married and her name is Mrs. M. now. I had been her student since I was in the 8th grade. To her, I was always the kid with "too many questions," I wanted to know every little detail of where, what, and when because I knew that if I didn't get it right, then I wouldn't remember it. At first, I thought that she didn't like me, and to this day, I'm not sure that she did right at first. But as I got older, she learned that my ADD affected my memory, and that's why I asked so many questions, but she also recognized that I had terrible social skills, so she developed this system where I was allowed 3 questions and after that I had to go find the answers from someone else other than her. If that was another section member, or the drum major, or even a section leader, she didn't care, but it had to be someone else. This not only taught me social skills, but it taught me responsibility because I had to go find the answers myself instead of relying on her. As I progressed in high school, I learned to just bring a notepad to game day briefing meetings so that I could write all the information down. The summer before my 11th grade year was the year where she really became influential in my life. Due to some personal problems my mother was having, her and I had a falling out of sorts, and I moved in with my grandmother. But for my mother, the stress of being a high school student and a marching band member wasn't enough for her, she had to add more. So she helped me work through some things emotionally, and she stepped in to advocate and vouch for me when my mother tried to sabotage my education. She is probably my favorite teacher from high school. 

I guess a teacher that affected me negatively didn't really come until I was in college, I don't remember having a "bad" teacher in grade school, although I'm sure there was one. Because I didn't score high enough on my math on the ACT, I had to take remedial classes. So I was super excited for my first year of college, and ended up failing my remedial math class that year because the teacher I had never taught a thing. Because of my disability, I've always been interested in how people learn, so I've tested myself plenty of times. I'm a very visual and auditory learner, especially in math. This particular teacher would sit in his chair and read a book, if someone had a question he would answer it, but otherwise there was no other teaching going on. I felt that because I didn't get either a visual or auditory example then I never properly learned in that class, I was not in my Zone of Proximal Development. 

I have never wanted to be a teacher more than I do right now. I've worked extremely hard just to get to this point in my education, and I'm not going to let anything stop me from getting my degree. When I graduate in Dec. of 2017, I will not only be the 3rd person in my entire family to graduate from college, but I will be the 1st person in my immediate family to earn a college degree. While I understand that there are plenty of other students who overcome way more adversity than I have,  for a stereotypical, white, middle class family, I feel like that is a significant achievement. I do believe that I have overcome my disabilities, and I do believe that I can achieve anything. 

That is what I want for all my students. I want to work with children who have behavioral disorders. Children who are the "bad kids" in school, children who can't sit still, children who can't make friends, children who have or will be left behind in the "No Child Left Behind" movement. I was one of those, and yet I came out on top. I want the same for every child I come in contact with. I know that it is an impossible dream to believe that I can make a difference in every child's life that enters my classroom, but if I can make a difference in one child's life, then it will all be worth it. All this work, and tears, and remedial classes, and thoughts of quitting, and fears of failing will all be worth it if just one child walks away with the state of mind that they can do anything, that they can conquer their world. For me, it's never been about money, or certainly not about the insurance or benefits, it's never been about wanting to decorate the classroom, or about getting to boss people around. It's about those children, and their future, it's about their potential and how I can help them achieve it, it's about the lessons learned and the ones that they teach me, it's about knowing that at the end of the school year, I not only did my job, but I exceeded expectations. That I was an advocate, a friend, a supporter, a pusher, a teacher. 

All those hats, pushed into one little word. I want to teach, so I can be those things to a child that needs it, I want to teach so I can be a teacher.