Thanks.
It's quite silly you know. I always knew I wanted to teach, but always knew it was college I wanted, NEVER high school. Then when teaching college didn't pan out (taught basic algebra, have a degree in statistics), I thought to myself.... perhaps teaching high school WILL work out. Then I moved across the country. Mom had a brilliant idea, she knew someone, who knew someone, who knew someone who had left some of their possessions in the state I was in, and they would pay half of the moving cost, send out two of the "most responsible teenagers they'd ever met" to do the physical labor and drive back with me, keeping me company. They turned out to be two drug addicts, lazy, slobs, littered all over the place, disappeared for hours on end, and otherwise did their absolute best to give me the absolute and perfect definition of HELL. I remember the journey vividly and by the third day (after the truck broke down and they spent a day fixing it) I was saying to myself, "this is a sign, I should NOT be a high school teacher, because there is NO WAY...!" Within a week of arriving in Georgia, I had a job teaching high school at a boarding school for serious delinquents! Met and married my hubby (also teaching at that private school) and then he and I moved to Arizona after our wedding. Thus began the three year process to become fully certified in this state. Since neither of us had ANY education credits, we had 21 credit hours that needed to be taken, 2 grueling tests to pass, fingerprint clearance cards to obtain, Arizona constitution classes to take, and numerous applications and forms to fill out. It's been a nightmare of paperwork. But as soon as I started teaching in the public high school I knew it was the job for me. And whom do I teach? The delinquents and seriously at-risk students. Sometimes they have to take time out from school to have their baby, or serve their time, but I love what I do. My department head thought she'd died and gone to heaven when I declared my love of this class that had been treated as a serious crutch to the department. I was the only one that ever loved it. And not only did I love it, I turned it from a makeshift class to one with a full curriculum. It's the "job" love of my life. Learning that I'd passed the test just fills me with gratitude... knowing I won't have to give up what I love. Even though I could go on to be a statistician and make four times as much money... why would I do that when I can do what I love?
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