Name Change

I must say I miss my blog. I miss having the ability to share my teaching ideas and having a place for reflection. The problem is I went through a LONG phase of not wanting to be a teacher anymore. I am sure we all go through this at some point in our career (maybe not as long as mine was), but thankful it is over (somewhat). Why my animosity toward teaching?!?! Well it started with a year that was rather rough. It was the year that I had several special needs friends in my classroom for the first time. That was one of the biggest blessing ever, because on VERY special friend helped me to realize (come to terms with, accept, admit) my son had autism. On the teaching side of things it was very hard on me, because I realized I was not trained, prepared, or supported for having these special friends in my class. I went back to school myself to become the teacher they needed. The next year only got worse. My son hit more struggles than ever before including being diagnosed with a seizure disorder. My daughter started having trouble with her kidneys. My class was the HARDEST of my career. I was finished. I could not handle the stress of my family and my class. I felt like I couldn’t be the mother I needed to be because my class was draining me. I felt like I couldn’t be the teacher I needed to be because I was constantly out or worried over my children. It wasn’t fair to anyone. I just wanted out!! It came to the end of the year and I felt certain my kiddos in my class and their families were not my biggest fans! I was wrong, you see we had loved each other through that year. And those little ones had learned in spite of my life situation. I was so stressed/blinded by life I was missing the changes they were making, the progress in front of my. Two days before the last day of school my parents found out we were raising money to get C an autism service dog, and in those two days they decided to pull together money to donate as my gift. This was by far the greatest gift I have EVER received from a class! And in an instant I realized what I thought was the hardest class of my career was the most important and impactful class I had ever had. They were no different than any other class, it was me. I was letting life get in my way. I learned a HUGE lesson from them. SOOO I came back this year with a different outlook on teaching. I am not going to lie I have totally different career goals now than I did, but they are still education related.

You may have noticed my blog changed names. Through my crisis of teaching faith last year I came to realize that my problem was my family and being a mother was coming first (that is not a real problem and continues to be the case). I just wasn’t sure how to balance everything and my type A personality melted down. I kept trying to put it all first and that wasn’t good for any one!  So I got my priorities straight. Now life is not perfect and I still have A LOT of stress! I am just handling it better. I being mommy comes first (hence the name change) and being a teacher comes second and honestly it has made me a BETTER teacher!!

So this blog is changing too! I still plan on posting teacher posts, but I am SO much more than that! I am a wife, a mother, a parent of a special needs child, an advocate, a Jamberry consultant, a friend, a sister, a daughter, and a Christian. This is one more thing on my plate so I can’t promise I will be faithful to it as I hope to be, but I will try because it was good for me as a teacher and I think it will be even better for me as a whole person!