How did I become a kindergarten teacher? It was never a goal. In fact, it was never even on the radar. Becoming an elementary school teacher was the unintended outcome of finding no openings in what I thought was my intended career - High School Guidance and Counseling.
When I burst on the scene with newly acquired degree, Guidance Counselors were not in big demand. However, school districts were looking for male teachers for elementary positions. I was elementary certified, but never intended to use it.
Desperate for work, I interviewed for a second-grade elementary position and, much to my surprise, was hired. Surprised because I was blatantly honest about my desire to move into guidance as soon as an opening was available. The need for a male presence in elementary must have trumped my ‘blatant honesty’ because I was hired. Thus my temporary teaching career began.
A few years later, when an opening in High School Guidance finally arrived, I decided that being in the action was now far more appealing than all the administrative stuff connected to High School Guidance. At that point, my elementary teaching career moved from temporary to permanent.
For the first fourteen years, I taught in almost every elementary position - except Kindergarten. I adapted well to all my unintended teaching experiences. Nevertheless, Kindergarten was never on my bucket list. The thought of spending my days with a people group whose attention span is measured in seconds never occupied more than seconds in my attention span.
However, sometime during my fourteenth year of teaching, our district decided to move from half day to full day kindergarten. That decision created a need to hire a lot of new kindergarten teachers. Being one of those teachers never occurred to me.
One fine day, our superintendent came to visit our school. As I was walking down the hall during a break, I was suddenly joined by him in my stroll back to my classroom. I should have known something was up because, as we walked, he put his arm on my shoulder and began to speak of the “good things” he was hearing about me.
By the time we got to my room, he had hoodwinked me into ‘trying it for a year’. The “it” was his desire to have a male kindergarten teacher among the new teachers and I was his choice. To be honest, I flatly refused. I told him straight forward, that besides snack and playtime, I had no idea how to teach kindergarten. He gently ignored me, and I reluctantly agreed to his “try-it-for-a-year” deal.
What he knew that I clearly did not, was that by the end of that year I would have discovered that Kindergarten really is the year that you (even as the teacher) learn everything you need to know to succeed.
Lesson One – NEVER HAVE A ‘NEVER’ ON YOUR BUCKET LIST.
A Rabbit Trail Lesson - Never Trust the Sudden “Arms-Around Your-Shoulder” Praise of your Boss
