When I graduated college, the US still had not fully recovered from the recession. I was fresh out of school with a B.A., determined that I was going to have a glamorous career in advertising with an office on Madison Ave. But, the shops on Madison Ave. or any advertising firm for that matter, wanted to reduce their budgets. They did not want to hire graduates fresh out of school who had little to no experience.
So, I decided it was best to stay in school for a few more years, earn another degree and let the economy recover. Halfway through my MBA, I found myself very bored and the advertising industry was beginning to lose its luster. I started to question other career paths, and thought back to my childhood dreams of what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I came to the decision that I wanted to be a teacher. Overall, I loved the structure and routine of the school day and I had a few good teachers along the way. So, I withdrew from the MBA program and enrolled at another university’s M.Ed program.
The months leading up to starting my M.Ed I was so excited. I moved to a new city, got a new apartment and finally felt like I found my path. However, that excitement was short lived. I remember my first day of class left me having a panic attack in my car. My cohort was a mix of young 20 somethings like myself and veteran teachers on the brink of retirement: who decided to have their school districts pay for one more degree for them before they retired.
The first thing the professor did, was have us introduce ourselves and talk about why we wanted to become a teacher. “After all, this is a calling”, they said. I could feel the knots in my stomach start to form. A calling I thought? This wasn’t a religious vocation, it was a career. I listened as my colleagues told stories of how they had teachers inspire and guide them, some even began to tear up as they described the impact these teachers had on their lives. I started to get very anxious about what I was going to say. Overall, my school experience was good but I did not have some break through or life changing moment with the help of a teacher. I begin to think “Why am I here?” “Why am I doing this?”. When it was finally my turn, I mumbled some lame response of wanting to help kids succeed and I was grateful for some of my elementary and high school teachers.
That night, I felt like such a fraud. I was going into this profession because it sounded like a good career option with job stability, a pension, and good health insurance. I looked at it from a very practical angle. I didn’t see myself as someone worthy of having a positive impact on a child’s life, nor did I hold a former teacher in higher regard than my parents, like most of my cohort.
After that first day, I knew it was going to be a challenging two years.
This Is The Teacher That Fell Off The Desk 
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