My School Update

I am in the middle of my second-to-last semester of school!  This is actually my last semester of actual classes--next semester will be full-time student teaching.  I'm really starting to feel the pressure now that I'm at the end.  My course load has tripled and I'm constantly under pressure of deadlines.  Every day I have to stretch myself and go out of my comfort zone.  It feels so scary and yet, very good.  I started this whole process of working on a teaching degree with the plan of going strait from earning this degree to working on a Masters Degree in Library Science.  This was the plan originally because I was a pansy.  

Let me explain:

Sure, I would love to be a librarian.  Someday I might even do that.  But secretly, all my life I have wanted to be a teacher.  I have always felt at home in school.  I loved elementary school so much and I was sad to leave it.  My only problem was that I was(am) horribly shy.  The very thought of standing in front of a classroom full of students scares the socks off of me.  This is why when I first went to college I avoided even thinking about a degree in Elementary Education.  I found the program that required the least amount of doing-scary-things and went with it.  

A few years ago, when I finally realized that I needed to get on with life and secure a career, I admitted that I wanted to work in an elementary school.  I also knew that I was too scared to actually do the teaching thing so I wracked my brain about which elementary school career I could handle.  I know, librarians have to put themselves out there too, but I thought that it would be less scary than teaching so I researched how I could go about doing that.  The advice I received from a couple of school librarians was that I should get a teaching degree first.  I convinced myself that I could handle getting a teaching degree and I forced myself to avoid even thinking about the student teaching (which really gives me anxiety every time do I think about it).

So now here I am 2 and a half years later.  I begin student teaching this January and will graduate in May.  I have learned so much these past years and I feel like I've started to change inside.  I am still super shy but I have started to recognize that it is something that I just have to ignore and beat down every day.  The times I've spent in the schools with the students and talking to teachers have convinced me teaching is really what I want to do.  I was talking to the principal at my kids' school and he told me that teaching changes you.  He had no idea how true his statement was for me--and I haven't even started teaching yet!  

I spend every day feeling stressed about my classes, scared about student teaching and anxious about the future in general but I also spend every day excited for this new chapter to begin, knowing that the person I am being melded into is someone I can be supremely happy with.