First post: A little about myself (and why I became the teacher I am)...

If you ask my mom, or any of my childhood friends, they'll tell you that I've always wanted to be a teacher. I was that kid on the playground of my small town public school, organizing a reading club during recess. The girl who, when volunteers were called on, was always raising my hand to help the teacher or one of my classmates. I wasn't a straight 'A' student, but I genuinely enjoyed school and learning, probably because I was a super curious kid. So when I applied to college, a natural fit for me was a local university that was known for it's esteemed teacher training program. I was probably one of the few students who ending up earning the degree in the major that I declared my freshman year! Teaching really did feel like a calling to me, so the event that happened in the spring of my junior year of college stuck with me for a very long time.

The first time I remember questioning if I'd chosen the right career was in April of 1999. I remember it was a warm, sunny day outside and I'd walked back to my apartment after class to get some lunch. When I opened the door, my roomates were sitting on the couch in silence, glued to the tv. "What's going on?" I asked as I walked in. My roomate, Michelle, turned to me and said, "There's been a shooting at a high school in Colorado. Some kids brought guns and bombs to school." Michelle was an elementary education major, so we sat togeher for the next couple of hours and watched live updates of what was occuring across the country in Columbine High School. I think we were in shock, because in the late 1990s, we didn't yet have school safety on our radar. There'd been previous school shootings, but nothing (at least) that the national media had picked up, much less broadcast in real time. Columbine is one of those days, like the space shuttle Challenger explosion or 9/11, that I'll always remember where I was and what I was doing. It was a day that shaped my future and probably the future of thousands of other would-be teachers at that time. 

Immediatly post-Columbine, we began to talk in my classes about what drove those students to shoot their classmates and try to blow up their school. We talked seriously about mental health and bullying and are kids watching too much violence on tv and in movies today? Is it that kids are listening to explicit music or playing too many video games? Why are kids using more drugs? Why do they seem more anxious? And it sounds naive now, but it was probably the first time it occured to me that as a teacher I will probably have students who not only don't like school, but may be depressed, or enraged, or even violent. I decided then that no matter what subject or grade level I was hired to teach, I wanted to reach kids. I wanted to help kids. And if the opportunity to work with "those" types of students presented itself, I'd take it. I didn't yet know that environment is often called "an alternative classroom." 

(In my next blog post, I'll discuss my early teaching years and my early experiences teaching in an alternative setting).