July Blog Challenge

Bloggy Moms Blog Challenge this month is all about childhood dreams and aspirations. Here's my entry.

When I was a kid, I dreamed about a lot of things lots of little girls dream about. At various times, I dreamed of being a dancer, a singer, and a movie star. But outside of those brief fantasies, the thing that really tugged at my heartstrings was being a teacher. I remember writing an essay in the third grade about my desire to be a teacher.

I was heavily influenced by several factors. I had a wonderful first grade teacher I adored who left during second semester to have a baby and came back to the school to show it to us. In second grade and third grade, I had another teacher I thought was wonderful because she would help me with math when I needed it and went to bat for me to fight school policy so I could check books out from the library that were beyond my grade level.

The biggest influence of all was my mom. She was attending college to become a teacher and prior to starting school I actually attended some of her classes with her and was entranced by the things they were talking about. Before all that though, she taught me. She taught me how to finger paint. She taught me how to write my name.  Best of all, she taught me to read and read well.

As time went on I turned my attention to other pursuits and interests and dreamed big dreams, but teaching was always somewhere in the background. It's said that some people have a gifting or personality for certain things. I've been told mine is teaching. I teach when I'm not even trying to. I've now graduated four students from our homeschool and I never get tired of the challenge. i love figuring out just how to explain something or illustrate it in such a way that the student understands it.

I never became a movie star and the major dancing I do is in my living room with a baby or toddler in my arms. The closest I've gotten to being a singer is singing in the church choir and a short stint doing some performances for charity. However, every day I have the honor of being a teacher. And I couldn't be happier.