Every teacher and every homeschooling parent has a unique backstory.  One that explains motivations, struggles and fears.  One that demonstrates their love of learning and confirms their devotion to their students.  When I was a teen, I had a poster in my room which depicted the shadow of a bird flying high over a mountain top.  The words read, “Life is not a destination but a journey.”  That’s how I feel about education.  We will never reach the point where we know it all.  Learning is a lifelong adventure.  A good teacher instills that love of learning in others and motivates students to step out and explore.  A good teacher inspires and encourages others to conquer fears, push forward, and make discoveries even when the road ahead appears daunting.  I never set out to be a teacher, but somewhere along the line, I became attracted to the idea of helping others learn.  Once I stepped into that role of a teacher, I was hooked; there was no going back.  Here is the story of how I began my journey and found out along the way that I wanted to be a teacher.

Humble Beginnings

In my late teens/early 20’s I told everyone, “I could never be a teacher!”  I went to college and obtained a BA in journalism because I wanted to be a writer.  I paid for my education and living expenses with jobs in retail and direct sales.  After graduating from Long Beach State, I did not pursue writing, but continued as an independent contractor for a direct sales company.

Fast forward a few years. I married, moved to Northern California, and was burnt out on the schedule of working nights and every weekend. I evaluated what I liked about my sales position and decided that I enjoyed teaching others about the product I was representing.  That led me to apply for a position as a teacher’s aid at Crystal Creek Regional Boy’s Camp, a juvenile detention facility with an onsite school, where I could work until 3:00 pm and have weekends off.  It may sound selfish to you, but it sounded great to me!

On my first day of work, I walked into a cement floored room of about 10-15 boys dressed in the camp uniform of bright orange button-down shirts and blue jeans.   The teacher I was to assist was a large, older woman with graying hair and a big smile on her face.  “I don’t want you to do much, today,” she said.  “I just want you to get to know the boys.  They look kind of scary at first, but I want you to remember, they are just kids,” she whispered in my ear as she welcomed me.

I looked from her face to a young man, slouched in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest, his legs sprawling out under his desk, ankles crossed.  His long sleeve orange shirt was rolled up past his elbows.  His arms were tatted.  He was staring me down with cold black eyes.  I stared back at him and wondered what I had gotten myself into.  The teacher looked from the young man, to me, “Why don’t you start by playing him in a game of dominoes?”  she suggested with a nod of her head.  I smiled, then he smiled, and we asked a few of the other young men to join us.

It only took me a few days to fall in love with the place.  The setting in the mountains by a creek was gorgeous!  Although the boys were sentenced to do time for crimes they committed, this work camp had real benefits that cadets could take advantage of.  Instead of being locked up in a jail cell at the local juvenile hall, they slept in a common barracks and spent the daytime working and acquiring skills. They did yard work, cooked, and served in the community.  They also had school time, and structured homework time.  They were kept busy, clean, and well fed.  The fresh air and work ethic rubbed off, and many lives were changed.

Right away, I was inspired by the way the camp was run, and I decided I wanted to teach there.  I took a state test which allowed me to substitute.  The teacher I was working for threw her back out, which allowed me the opportunity to practice subbing in our own classroom.  All went well, and she encouraged me to work toward a real California teaching credential.  In January, I started night classes geared toward certification. That summer, I was awarded an Emergency Credential from the County Office of Education and taught high school in my own self-contained classroom at Crystal Creek.

The Road to a California Clear Credential

The following fall, I quit my job in order to complete student teaching.  (The university that I attended would not let you work in a classroom and student-teach at the same time.)

Less than two weeks into student teaching, I received a job offer to work in a small Christian school located in the mountains, 50 miles north of where I lived.  The school was supposed to launch on Monday, and the teacher who was originally hired, had taken a job somewhere else at the last minute.  Would I come get them started?

I discussed the matter with my master teacher, since I had already started working with her.  She thought it would be a great experience.  She helped me with a ton of ideas to get started and let me photocopy anything I wanted.  I dropped out of school and had four days to get ready.  It all came together, though, and I helped successfully kick off a new school.  Talk about a miracle!

This job was the ultimate challenge.  Not only was I teaching 17 children, grades 4^th-7^th in a two-room schoolhouse (The other room had grades K-3.), but I was also driving 100 miles a day in what I was soon to find out, an unreliable car.

Some highlights from the Christian school in the mountains:  Older ladies from the church would take turns sitting in the parking lot and pray for me and the school. Talk about support from above! I learned tons about differentiated instruction which I have used my entire career.  Once again, the children were the best part: all unique, and sweet with a variety of abilities and talents.

I kept the teaching position through November, but unfortunately transportation issues prevailed.  My car broke down in the middle of nowhere one Friday night, and I sat outside in the cold until my husband could get to me at about 11:00 p.m.  That same weekend, a young mother from the church that sponsored the school was tragically killed in an automobile accident on the road I drove to work each day. The weather turned colder, and it began to snow.  I couldn’t afford a new car on the salary I was given, and my husband was concerned for my safety.  It all added up, against the situation.  Unfortunately, I had to quit. I left that sweet classroom of children before Christmas.

Not wanting to waste any time, I enrolled back at the university for the Spring semester where I was able to complete my coursework and student teaching.  I was issued my CA Clear Credential just in time to be hired back at Crystal Creek as a full time English/Science teacher in the fall.

Back at Crystal Creek

During the time I was away from the camp and attending the university, Crystal Creek was slightly restructured.   Two other fabulous teachers were hired at the same time, and together we collaborated to have several awesome school years working together.

Some highlights of my time at Crystal Creek?  I taught about eight, 14-18 year-olds, how to read.  Together the teachers and I assisted with credit recovery and even awarded some of our students with high school diplomas.  It was an extremely rewarding place to work.  Teacher collaboration was fantastic, and we felt like we were making a difference in the lives of our students.  Sure, some of the cadets went back to “a life of crime” or onto jail and prison.  But we were comforted in the fact that most of our students could look back at their time and what they accomplished at Crystal Creek and feel a sense of pride and accomplishment.  No matter what happed in life after they left, they knew what it felt like to work hard and be successful.  We hoped it would stick with them, and that they would make the appropriate changes in their lives.  Many did!

I would have probably stayed at the camp until it was finally closed in 2009, but three years later, I had a baby. After my maternity leave, I returned to work, but my baby wasn’t doing well in childcare.  I took a year’s leave of absence to stay home with him and figure things out.  I never returned.

Right before I left Crystal Creek, I had a discussion with one of the probation officers at the camp.  I knew his wife did something part-time with an independent study charter school.  When I asked about it, he gave me her phone number.  And that is how I was introduced to my next adventure in education, the world of charter schools, independent study and homeschooling.

What are These “Weird” People up to?

I must admit that when I first heard of people schooling at home, I had several stereotypes in mind.  I thought independent study consisted of the following:

1. Students who were on probation or had been suspended from traditional school.
2. Students who because of their emotional state of being or illness could not attend traditional school.
3. Students who just didn’t fit in.
4. Students whose parents lived in the backwoods or were cultish in their beliefs and wanted their children isolated.
5. And students with parents who didn’t want their children to socialize with others.

I was very skeptical, and I only took the job because I needed to bring home at least a little money or we would be in serious financial trouble.  At first, because of my experience at Crystal Creek, I was hired to work primarily with troubled junior high and high schoolers who loosely fit my stereotypes 1-3 above.  But as with my previous position, when I met my students, I fell in love with them.  Right away, I realized that each child was an individual, and how wonderful it was to personalize learning for each one!  I began to see the benefits of home education.  Some of my students took the opportunity to step away from peer pressure or negative influences and begin to make some important decisions about what they wanted for their own lives.  Those who needed it, got counseling.  Some transferred back to traditional schools.  Others graduated and went onto jobs, college, or the military.

Little by little, I lost my idea of the “typical homeschooler”.  It faded away like a noonday shadow.  More and more children were added to my roster who had nothing to do, in any shape or form with my stereotypes.  Suddenly my eyes were opened to the wonderful opportunities these children had, simply because they were not locked in a classroom for six hours each day.

Now here is where I have to say that I am not bashing brick and mortar schools.  They have their own pros and cons.  I am simply saying that I had never seen the pros of educating at home before I began working with this charter school. If you can open up your mind to the myriad of possibilities, these kids were doing it. They had time for clubs and sports and church camps and making movies.  There were gardeners, compost bin builders, farmers, singers, dancers, musicians, interns, seamstresses, cooks, and students who ran their own businesses. One family even left the charter to sail around the world.

I worked with this charter school for the next 5 years.  By the time my oldest son was old enough for kindergarten, I was sold on the idea of educating at home.  At this point, I was confident in my teaching abilities, and I knew my child like no one else.  This combination was a win, win situation.  I researched all the options and decided that he would get a good education if I enrolled him in a traditional school, but he would get a better education if I enrolled him in the charter school and educated him at home.

Once again, I stepped away from my job, and this time I poured my heart and soul into homeschooling.  Only I had been bitten by the teaching bug and teaching one child was not enough for me.  Within a year I was opening my home and holding writing classes and science classes one day a week for other children.  Some of the students schooled through charter schools, others were independent.  In the afternoons, I tutored children from traditional brick and mortar schools who needed extra help.  As my children got older, they developed their own love of learning and needed me a little less, so I went back to work part-time for the charter.

We took the decision to educate at home, one year at a time.  When the time came for high school, one child chose a comprehensive high school, the other is still combining classes at the community college while still doing the majority of his learning at home.

Which leads me to today.  Writing this has sure taken me down memory lane.  It has shown me that what began as a selfish motivation to have weekends off, turned into a lifelong labor of love.  Looking at fears reflected back at me in the face of a juvenile delinquent showed me that all human-kind share some common fears.  Sometimes teachers fear children, sometimes children fear teachers, and sometimes we both fear the struggle of learning new things.  Good teachers inspire us to take those chances anyway.  Would I change any of it?  Only to have more time with the people along the way, but time has a funny way of speeding up our journey, for good and for bad.  This journey has become a life long adventure.