.004. new prospects

My focus for the last year and half, well basically two years, has been to get a job teaching at McCormick Elementary School. When I began my student teaching at this school, I immediately fell in love with the students. They are so wonderful! After I finished my student teaching and graduated, I dedicated myself to subbing at this wonderful school. That's what I have been doing for the last year and a half. Subbing. There is one particular class that I have not subbed in because I am not certified through DSS. Well, these kids in this class know my name and insist on giving me the most wonderful hugs when I am walking down the hallway. I looked forward to those moments. These are the kids that I seem to miss the most now that school is out for the summer. I had hope that this is where I would wind up next school year, in my own classroom. Due to cut backs and budget cuts, that prospect is not looking its brightest. However, today, I have heard from two different people about openings in other nearby school districts.This brightened my day and alleviated the sweating, caused by the what if's and what next year holds for me, for the time being. There is hope that I could have my own classroom. My own classroom. Ahhh. What would that feel like?

I have known that I wanted to be a teacher since I was in first grade and never steered away from that dream. I taught my stuffed animals how to read and do arithmetic; they were wonderful, well-behaved students. In a sense, I suppose I have had my own classroom. On those afternoons when I would come home from school and, instead of doing homework, I would banish myself to my bedroom and recount the days lessons with my stuffed animals. They were most eager to learn what I had learned at school that day. I am a little embarrassed to admit this, but I would even take this to a further extent. I made worksheets and got my mom to copy a class set at work. Then, I would teach the lesson, hand out the worksheets to my eager students, explain the directions, take them up so I could complete them (in different handwriting, of course, because not every student had the same handwriting), then I would pass them back out again only to take them back up because the students had finished their work. I would grade the papers with my red pen. Then, for the third time, I would hand the papers back out to go over what the students had done wrong. After I had finished my lesson, I collected the papers because after school had dismissed, I needed my bed to sleep!

I don't think this career is something that I simply decided to go into when I got to college because I was being pressured. No, this career is one that I have been dreaming of, training for, and aspiring to be for virtually my whole life. This is the career that I was born to do.

Today, I feel there is hope for me to have my own classroom. A classroom that has "Miss Pearce Room so and so" on the outside of the door. A classroom filled with students that are just as eager to learn as my stuffed animals once were. A classroom where I can touch the lives of my students in such a way that will change their lives forever.

Teaching my first set of second graders in my first clinical at Lander University

There is hope.

This is my summer life!