“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” – William Butler Yeats
This is the story of how I fell into the career that shaped my life.
It starts in the summer after I graduated University. With a Bachelor of Science in Philosophy, I was just a few more classes and one huge exam away from applying to medical school. That was the plan. Medical school. Pediatrics for sure, perhaps something very specific like neonatal intensive care. While I finished those few classes and studied for my exam I figured I would start working to pay for my classes, pay off my debt, and hopefully save for medical school expenses. So I searched for a job.
I stubbled upon a position for a “floater” at a daycare center in Brooklyn. Just a 45 minute drive from where I was living and higher pay than the camp counselor job I had a previous summer. That was a job I really enjoyed. I was hired quickly, during the interview actually, and started work soon after. It wasn’t long before I was moved to assistant teacher in the preschool classroom. Shortly after that, when the lead teacher resigned, I started carrying the responsibilities of substitute lead teacher. Unfortunately there were less than kosher practices taking place at that daycare center and in the end I left the school.
That was my first taste of daycare work and despite the issues with the school, working with the children was wonderful. This fist experience allowed me to move into an assistant teacher position at another school in lower Manhattan. This location was easily commute from my home via subway. Straight shot on the F line.
This is where my story as an educator began to take root. I had a supervisor at this school who was a former speech pathologist and she insisted that I was a natural at working with children, particularly those with special needs, and strongly encouraged me to study speech pathology. I was really enjoying the work I was doing in classrooms so I ended up going to graduate school for Early Childhood Education (ECE) instead, in hopes of continuing what I was already doing and learning how to do it more skillfully.
Serendipitously, one of my classmates in my ECE program was the Assistant Director at a childcare center just south of Central Park. She approached me saying she really liked my presentations and demo lessons and asked if I would meet with the Director of her school to interview for a young preschool position. This was a huge blessing. I grew and learned so much at that school and absolutely loved working there. Then COVID happened.
Everything shut down and life became so unpredictable. Once all of that settled, though, I found myself newly married to my college sweetheart, living in a new city in different country, and starting again at building up my career.
About two years later, I found myself resigning from a position as Assistant Director of a program managing 14 classrooms, eagerly awaiting the arrival of my first baby.
And that is the end of my story as a teacher.
At least for now.
