life beyond the well…

Tag Archives: Education


by 1 Comment

One Year Down…

It’s summer, and as the title indicates, I’ve gotten one year down/under my belt on the peanut field.  Looking back, I definitely feel that I made the right decision to move back to NC.

You see, this time last year, I had just signed a lease at my new “apartment” in Roanoke Rapids.  I was missing my apartment near the beach in Florida, as well as my Miami friends and the culture of Miami.  At the same time, I was glad to be closer to home, closer to my family and back to a place where for me, things made sense.  Miami was fun, but not the best fit.

Roanoke Rapids is a temporary stop on the journey.  But after this year, I have learned so much and have grown so much personally and professionally.  I definitely feel that I’m on the way to making my dreams come true.

During this past school year, I taught 8th grade Government/Economics to the Pride of 2014 at KIPP: Gaston College Preparatory.  While I’m sure they learned at lot (at the VERY least, they ALL can tell you the Preamble to the US Constitution and explain each of the amendments within the Bill of Rights, as well as explain Supply and Demand, market, traditional, and command economies, and personal finance), I learned more.  I think that part of the reason that children exist is to teach us how to love, forgive, and have patience.  The Pride of 2014 are my babies, and I’m proud to be joining them at the high school next year.

Yep!  I’ll be moving on up to the high school.  Not as a teacher, but as a college counselor.  Through much prayer, I realized that while I love being in the classroom, working as a college counselor is a better use of my gifts and talents.  I’m excited to be joining the KIPP: Pride High School staff just across the peanut field.

With any new position, there’s a huge learning curve, so I’m spending a good portion of my summer reading information and books about college admissions, as well as trying to get to know the students that I’ll be working with.  It stands to be an exciting year.

I imagine that if I had to give this past year a theme, it would be “perseverance”.  There were many things that I had to overcome and press through, but despite those challenges, God has been faithful and I have been blessed.

Until next time…


by Leave a comment

Teaching = Humility Builder

I think that for several years I have misinterpreted the look that I’ve received when I told people that I wanted to be a teacher. I always thought that the look was condescending and that the giver of the look was implying that I must lack the intellectual capacity to do anything else with my life. Now that I’m in my second year of teaching, I understand the look to be more along the lines of, “You must have an infinite amount of patience and energy, because I know that I don’t have what it takes to do what you do.”

That may sound conceited or arrogant, but I don’t mean for it to. What I’ve discovered is that teaching is an incredible humility builder, and if you can’t take being knocked down several times a day (at least 3 times, and I don’t literally mean being knocked down), it’s a hard career.

It could be that I’m too hard on myself. It may very well be that my lessons are better than I think they are, or that my students could be retaining more information than they express to me. At any rate, I spend a great amount of my day in reflection as to how to make things better- and when I say make things better, I mean make me better.

It’s humbling because there are always areas that can be improved. Even on days where the lessons go well, the students are even more well-behaved than they would be normally, I’m finding areas where I can be more dynamic and more effective to create a better learning environment.

I guess the best way to sum it up is like this: “There’s always room for improvement. It’s the biggest room in the house.”