When I started my career as an educator, I chose Business as my content area for two reasons. One, I had a degree already in Business - Accounting, as well as work experience in the private sector, that I felt would be an asset to my teaching. Second, the content is always changing and updating, that excited me!
Now, 17 years later, change came knocking on my door and I answered. Starting next school year, my "course" content will no longer be geared towards students in grades 7-12, but their teachers! Effective for the 2013-14 school year I will be the Tech Integration Specialist for the Fairmont Jr Sr High School in Minnesota. I don't even know how to describe my emotions. My mind is just spinning with thoughts and ideas, plans and schedules. The possibilities are endless, at least in my mind!
The hardest thing, and my only regret, will not be working directly with my students. And today, when the message went out to the staff about my new position, I had 2 students in class tell me all the classes they were going to take in High School so that they'd be in my classes! They joked "You're never going to get rid of us!" I had all I could do not to break down in tears! I didn't have the heart to tell them about next year, not yet anyway.
Memories like this will stay with me forever, as do all my students. They are my kids away from home, they are the reason I come to work, to see their smiling faces and watch them learn. But change is good! My new "students" I'm sure will be exciting, challenging, and forever learning to improve their own classrooms.
I will look behind with happiness and fond memories, and look to the future in excitement of the possibilities!
