First and foremost, I am a kid at heart. I love playing tag, building with legos and perfecting my coloring-in-the-lines skills. Sometimes when I am out to dinner with my now 21-month old, I find he has moved onto using the forks and knives as drumsticks and I am determined to finish the color-by-number picture.
I found teaching on accident. When asked what I wanted to do when I got big, my response was to change the world. My dad will tell you a story (or two) of a call from the principal when I was in 2nd grade. The principal said I wouldn't stop "cheating". My response (apparently) was that I was just trying to teach my friends. My dad tells me he knew then that I would be a part of something great or perhaps that was him looking at the glass half-full. Either way, he tells the story with pride.
I grew up volunteering in homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Some of my earliest memories are sitting at dingy tables in mismatched chairs explaining to old homeless men about Barbie's family tree (everyone doesn't know who Skipper is??) I remember working at a soup kitchen downtown once a month and my job was always to pass out the rolls. I don't think at the time I really understood what we were doing, but looking back I should've guessed it would lead to great things.
When I got a little older, the question turned to what do you want to be. My response? An artist. I wanted to make beautiful things. Maybe a book or a painting or a sculpture but something beautiful. With the popularity of computers in my generation, slowly artist turned graphic designer and after I began my program in college, I found print advertising and art direction.
I never stopped volunteering. It was a requirement of my household, in fact. My father provided us food, housing, a busy vacation life, etc. Our jobs were to get good grades and volunteer. In high school, I volunteered at a nursing home for 2 hours everyday after school and occasionally I would tutor at the Elementary School down the street.
In college, I used my summers to pay it forward. In 2005, I went to Chicago, Illinois and volunteered in a Head Start program. I still remember being so blown away by the 4 year olds participating in what I now know as family style dining. They were using their manners and passing the bowls of food around the table like adults. I was blown away.
In 2006, I went to Denver, Colorado with the same program and worked at a summer camp program. Because these children lived in the lowest of economic classes, they were often 2 and 3 grades behind academically. Our job was to support them in smaller ratios in order to catch them up. That summer something happened... I fell in love. I fell in love with the kids, with the program, with teaching. I still remember talking with my supervising teacher and telling her how much I loved my time there and that maybe Marketing/Advertising was not the path for me after all. She asked me what I was waiting for.
I graduated the following summer and got my first job in a preschool. Each week, each day, each interaction with each child proved I was finally on the right path. This was the path I was being guided to in 2nd grade as I tried to help my friends finish their tests. This was my path to creating beautiful things (or people) and to changing the world. And maybe, just maybe one day, I will even write a book to tell about it.
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