~thyme to go home~On the road to somewhere~Part 1
~thyme to go home~
On the road to somewhere~Part 1
As a kid growing up in the little south central Kansas town of Haven, I never entertained the notion of becoming a teacher. I'm telling you, not EVEN once. I wasn't sure what I would do with life up until about my senior year of high school and because it was time to think about going to college (and that was a given in our household), I began to think of what might lie ahead. When I entered college that August of 1973 as a lowly freshman at Hutchinson Community Junior College (as it was called at that time), I thought being a secretary would be fun. After all, I loved to type and was actually very good at it, so it seemed a perfect fit for me. That idea lasted until the end of my first semester there. After only a few short months I knew that I wanted to go a different direction and ended up transferring after Christmas to a private college in nearby Newton, Kansas. It was there on the Bethel College campus that a dear professor named Dr. Earl Zehr somehow saw the potential in me to become a teacher. After some encouragement in one of his classes on methods of teaching students with special needs, education was to become the path that I would choose to follow.
I believed him.
It took me 6 years and several semesters at 2 private colleges in Kansas to complete the teacher education program, but I finally did it! In May of 1979, I walked across the stage at Sterling College to receive my Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education and on the road I went.
I never once looked back.
From August of 1979 until May of 2010, I was a teacher back home in Reno County, Kansas. I had taught students in two different districts, one of the them being the very place that I was raised up in and attended school as a kid. My days as an educator for Haven USD 312 and Hutchinson USD 308 brought me much joy and provided the fodder for many, many happy memories of life in the classroom. I worked really hard as a teacher, made a gazillion mistakes, and learned something brand new from each of those missteps every single day. My students from those very early years are now all adults with kids who are nearly grown up themselves.
After I was divorced in 2003, the economics of being a single woman living on a teacher's salary with children still in middle school slapped me upside the head in a wake up call. I knew that I had to find a second job, one that could provide the cushion I needed each and every month in order to survive on my own. Because my mom was living in a long term care facility in Hutchinson and often needed help, I decided to look into becoming a CNA. After taking the classes and having some hands on experience, I found myself falling in love with the idea of becoming a nurse. Especially I set my sights on becoming one who might one day be able to care for those at the end of life. For 5 years, a little bit at a time, I took all the prerequisites that would be needed to apply for nursing school. It wasn't easy. The science and math courses, both of them "my Achilles heel", liked to have done me in. I persisted. In the end, my GPA was surprisingly quite good, especially so for a little 5th grade girl who once declared herself the charter member of the "I Hate Math Club" at Haven Grade School-1965.
In May of 2010, I officially became a retired Kansas schoolteacher.
I fully anticipated entering nursing school within a year's time.
As has been the case many times in life, my human made plans didn't pan out.
God had other ideas.
Retirement lasted from May until the first day of October. After a dismal summer of working in a hospital setting and realizing that this was not the life for me, I was so thankful to receive the call from my former district in Hutchinson. My good friend Theresa was asking me if I would consider returning to the classroom to help out after an immediate opening had arisen. I may have answered "Yes, you bet!" before the offer was even given. 3 days after that call, I was back at school as a Title I teacher for Lincoln Elementary in Hutchinson, Kansas. It was a position I would hold for the next 3 years before Mike and I were married.
Those extra 3 years past my original retirement date were a true gift to me. I realized nearly immediately in that dismal summer of 2010 that I had made a tremendous mistake in retiring early. Although I continued to work as a CNA on the weekends, during breaks from school, and all summer long I knew that my true calling was to be a teacher of children. And just like everything else in life, sometimes we don't know how much something means to us until we lose it for a while.
That something for me was the chance to teach children.
~to be continued in part 2~
On the road to somewhere~Part 1
As a kid growing up in the little south central Kansas town of Haven, I never entertained the notion of becoming a teacher. I'm telling you, not EVEN once. I wasn't sure what I would do with life up until about my senior year of high school and because it was time to think about going to college (and that was a given in our household), I began to think of what might lie ahead. When I entered college that August of 1973 as a lowly freshman at Hutchinson Community Junior College (as it was called at that time), I thought being a secretary would be fun. After all, I loved to type and was actually very good at it, so it seemed a perfect fit for me. That idea lasted until the end of my first semester there. After only a few short months I knew that I wanted to go a different direction and ended up transferring after Christmas to a private college in nearby Newton, Kansas. It was there on the Bethel College campus that a dear professor named Dr. Earl Zehr somehow saw the potential in me to become a teacher. After some encouragement in one of his classes on methods of teaching students with special needs, education was to become the path that I would choose to follow.
"Peggy, you were born to be a teacher", Dr. Zehr told me one day in class.And you know what?
I believed him.
It took me 6 years and several semesters at 2 private colleges in Kansas to complete the teacher education program, but I finally did it! In May of 1979, I walked across the stage at Sterling College to receive my Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education and on the road I went.
I never once looked back.
From August of 1979 until May of 2010, I was a teacher back home in Reno County, Kansas. I had taught students in two different districts, one of the them being the very place that I was raised up in and attended school as a kid. My days as an educator for Haven USD 312 and Hutchinson USD 308 brought me much joy and provided the fodder for many, many happy memories of life in the classroom. I worked really hard as a teacher, made a gazillion mistakes, and learned something brand new from each of those missteps every single day. My students from those very early years are now all adults with kids who are nearly grown up themselves.
After I was divorced in 2003, the economics of being a single woman living on a teacher's salary with children still in middle school slapped me upside the head in a wake up call. I knew that I had to find a second job, one that could provide the cushion I needed each and every month in order to survive on my own. Because my mom was living in a long term care facility in Hutchinson and often needed help, I decided to look into becoming a CNA. After taking the classes and having some hands on experience, I found myself falling in love with the idea of becoming a nurse. Especially I set my sights on becoming one who might one day be able to care for those at the end of life. For 5 years, a little bit at a time, I took all the prerequisites that would be needed to apply for nursing school. It wasn't easy. The science and math courses, both of them "my Achilles heel", liked to have done me in. I persisted. In the end, my GPA was surprisingly quite good, especially so for a little 5th grade girl who once declared herself the charter member of the "I Hate Math Club" at Haven Grade School-1965.
In May of 2010, I officially became a retired Kansas schoolteacher.
I fully anticipated entering nursing school within a year's time.
As has been the case many times in life, my human made plans didn't pan out.
God had other ideas.
Retirement lasted from May until the first day of October. After a dismal summer of working in a hospital setting and realizing that this was not the life for me, I was so thankful to receive the call from my former district in Hutchinson. My good friend Theresa was asking me if I would consider returning to the classroom to help out after an immediate opening had arisen. I may have answered "Yes, you bet!" before the offer was even given. 3 days after that call, I was back at school as a Title I teacher for Lincoln Elementary in Hutchinson, Kansas. It was a position I would hold for the next 3 years before Mike and I were married.
Those extra 3 years past my original retirement date were a true gift to me. I realized nearly immediately in that dismal summer of 2010 that I had made a tremendous mistake in retiring early. Although I continued to work as a CNA on the weekends, during breaks from school, and all summer long I knew that my true calling was to be a teacher of children. And just like everything else in life, sometimes we don't know how much something means to us until we lose it for a while.
That something for me was the chance to teach children.
~to be continued in part 2~
~the barely 20-year old that I once was~
~Every kid needs a teacher who believes in them. Dr. Zehr of Bethel College believed in me!~
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