Student Teacher

Well? Which am I? Student or Teacher?

...and so the 2012 identity crisis begins!


After a long and pleasant vacation, and a pretty sweet first week of 2012, I'm back in my Tennessee mountain home [insert nod to Dolly Parton] to finish up my Master's Degree. WHOA. It's been fun, and I've enjoyed my life here in ways I couldn't have expected. But moving up here was no easy task for this sweet little homeschooled girl. There are days when I just want to scream "I WANT MY MOMMY!!!" or "Please wait just a minute and my Daddy will come take care of this."

Take, for example, this Tuesday. In order to begin student teaching, I was instructed to visit my 'placements' (in Romania a 'placement' is an orphanage, so already there are some less-than-comforting associations with that word). This exercise is intended to help us "meet potential employers" and make "future professional connections." Since my licensure is PreK-12, the dreaded day had finally come: I had to go to high school. I could give you a really drawn out description of my take on that brief experience, but I won't. Just picture me, wide-eyed, being led through purple and black hallways by some tall kid named Jake. "I am an adult. These are children. I am 24 years old. These are children. I am an adult." Fortunately this will be my second placement, so I have some time to continue preparing myself emotionally.

Now elementary school, I can handle that. I like kids. They're cute. I'm at least a foot taller than most of them. They have colorful rooms and lots of picture books. Of course, driving there today made me feel a little like Miss Christy Huddleston of Cutter Gap (that story did take place in this area). I had directions from google maps which required only two turns. I never pay much attention to the mileages in those directions, so after about ten minutes of curves and cows and houses on hillsides, I was beginning to wonder if I'd been assigned to Deliverance Elementary School... but then out of nowhere, in true Tennessee fashion, a settlement arose out of the valley. Beginning this Friday, I will work with a friendly and fashionable teacher who works with adorable students in a school that's collecting blue jeans for the needy. Thank you, Jesus.

I have to make some decisions in the near future, and you know how I feel about those. Making decisions means thinking about things like what you really want in life, who you want to be, and where you want to go. Maybe by the end of the semester I'll at least know whether I'm a student or a teacher.