I don’t really have a story. I just have a feeling.
I have been a stay-at home mom for the last 14 years. Before that I was surviving and just trying to move onto the next phase of my life. As a child my favorite game to play was house and school. We had a little old fashioned desk in our unfinished basement. My dad had broken chunks of sheet rock laying around that we would use to write on the unfinished cement walls. I played with my sister and since we both wanted to be the teacher, we would bring our babies to school and teach them during the day and then take them home to our bedrooms to be their mothers at night. This game continued day after day for years. I knew that all girls grew up to be good moms who taught their children.
Then I started Jr. High and I started hearing about careers choices others were making and decided that being a teacher by day and a mother in the evenings did not sound like I had set very high goals for myself so I randomly picked a career that I had heard that sounded important and from that point on, that was what I was going to be when I grew up. I was going to be an Interior Decorator. As I graduated from high school and adults and peers around me would ask me what my major in college was going to be, I would tell them the career I had chosen in Jr. High and I knew from their reactions that I had chosen a field that they approved of. I entered a University and began my first semester of college on my journey to becoming rich and distinguished. I attended my first class in my major, looked around the room at all the students I would be competing against, opened my book to my first page, and felt sick to my stomach. I knew I had made a mistake. I finished that semester and actually one more before heading home to reevaluate my future. I decided to fall back on the classes I did well in and enjoyed while I was in high school. I began taking business and accounting classes through CSI at the extension center in Burley and once again, I had the feeling that I was in the wrong major. Rather than continuing to waste my time and money, I decided to take some time off from school and just work. I was frustrated and discouraged. I had no clue what I was supposed to do.
I met my husband that next summer, was married that fall and three years later found myself with two children and moving my little family 1000 miles east to support my husband as he went back to school to complete his bachelor’s degree. The next 10 years were spent supporting him and raising my children. I always knew that I would return to school someday though, so I was always on the lookout for things I enjoyed that I could make a career out of.
While we were living here in Twin, my husband was working in law enforcement and my children were attending an elementary school where several children, of people my husband had arrested, also attended. As these children began to figure out who my son’s father was, I could see problems begin to surface. The best option, we came up with at the time, was to bring our children home for a couple of years. I would home school them until we could move and he was transferred to a different position within his work. I spent the next 4 years homeschooling my children. While I wouldn’t say our home school years were a success, I learned a lot about myself. When the time came to enroll them back into school, I found that I missed the curriculum and the constant learning environment that was in our home. I missed the assignments and the projects and I was really bored. I decided it was time to figure out my own education and go back to school.
I spent hours reading through every single major offered at CSI. I spent days reading the course requirements and the course summaries. I researched careers online and took several career placement tests. I still had no idea what to major in. I finally decided to talk to a counselor here on campus. I told him my goal was to get a four year degree. He sent me to talk to the Boise State representative and the Idaho State education representative. The Boise rep was gone to lunch so I went over to talk to the Idaho State rep first. As I visited with her, my heart started racing and my hands began to sweat and I had goose bumps on my arms. As I left her office, I had tears in my eyes. I knew that after years of searching and praying for an answer, that education was where I was suppose to focus my learning.
Coming into this class I have a lot of questions. I don’t know what I have to offer. I don’t know what my interests are. I just know that I love children and I want to do something good with my life. I know that as a mother, I have learned and grown so much from teaching my own children and they seem to be turning out okay so far. I know that in my homeschooling years, I loved the Classical learning style and since my children are back in school, I love the education and discipline programs that their charter school has implemented, so I’m thinking that direction. Beyond that, I have no idea.
I have a lot of fears. One of my biggest fears is also my biggest motivator; my emotions. I lead with my emotions and I stumble over my emotions. I hope to learn how to balance that all out. Also, I have children of my own and some days and stages I really struggle being around them. What if I feel this same way towards other people’s children? Sometimes I talk too much and don’t listen enough and sometimes I’m just really boring to be around. What if I’m just not a good teacher? Finally, I’m afraid of working outside of my home away from my children. I don’t want to take away from them. I want them to always be my first priority.
I love that our text book encourages us to stop and really ponder the answers to the questions asked. I hope that as I work through this class, the answers will continue to come. I’m scared but I am determined. My personal motto has become “Do hard things.” I’m looking forward to seeing where this road leads to.
