Time Marches On

It's been an interesting week with a confluence of life and school putting me in a rather reflective mood.

School - I started my semester and have experienced orientation to the middle school where I will serve my clinical hours this semester (my high school orientation is not until next week). Logistically, the place is only about 15 minutes from home, which should be great. The pep talk from the coordinating teachers at the school was interesting, leading me to think a lot about whether I would prefer teaching at the middle school level instead of high school. I still have plenty of time to make the decision but a part of me thinks that I would like middle or perhaps even elementary school quite a bit. I've always been able to relate well to kids in that age group, perhaps because my mentality is generally that of about a 4th grader. I've been stuck in Beavis mode for the last 20 years.

My other class this semester has me doing a lot of reading about challenges faced in the classroom. Between my clinical orientation and this reading, my idyllic and romantic vision of the inspired teacher-student relationship is being revised. I am realizing that there are going to be some terribly difficult challenges ahead. This is extremely scary but I also believe that my talents will allow me to make an impact. Time will tell, I suppose, but in the meantime, I need to continue working hard to start to build a comfort level in this brand new arena.

I will very quickly have an opportunity to put some of this theory into practice. At the moment, I'm swimming in choppy waters with no life jacket. I'm certain I'll persevere. But I can't help but notice the nagging feeling in my head that I'm acknowledging myself as a failure for throwing in the towel on the corporate career. I'm probably a little too proud of myself in most things, my career being no exception, so this feeling of admission is making me uncomfortable. But I'll keep these feelings of failure reserved to their little corner in my mind, allowing them to come out on occasion when I feel the need to revel in my melancholy.

Life - Emotional times in the household. The oldest took her first trip to school on the school bus last Friday in the first day of kindergarten. I will not lie, the eyes were a bit misty on Mom & Dad. But I will say, the process was made easier by her excitement. When the bus rounded the corner, she jumped up and down excitedly and ran to me to give a big hug. The kid has no idea how much love there is for her in this house, no matter how many times we say it.

At the same time, the middle rascal started pre-school today. At times I wonder if she gets short shrift since we've already experienced these things with her older sister. But she seems to be handling day 1 like a champ. I think it helps that she has visited this school dozens of times in trips to drop off & pick up her older sister. It will be very good for her to start to develop her own set of school experiences instead of only having her sister's experiences to share. Of course, we're amazed at how far along she is in her learning, benefiting positively from having an older sister where she can sort of "tag along" in the learning experience. I suppose it is that way for many younger siblings.

I'm going to stop here before I get into full-blown whiner mode. And I promise to have some more fun content for the next post.

Until next time.

Ace