For starters everyone is pretty aware of the fact that it took me awhile to graduate college. I was one of those young adults who had a hard time finding their way after High School. In High School I cared more about working and playing softball than my studies so I never learned how to study, which turned into me not wanting to. As test would come and go I would get more and more frustrated and would end up just filling in the bubbles. Call it anxiety or what not, but I didn’t have time to make myself be still long enough to learn the right way.
While in my 3rd year of Community College I finally figured out want I wanted to do with my life, I wanted to teach. But, because I never knew or had time to study I didn’t get very far. I became frustrated and wanted to quit. I almost did, until I spoke with a school counselor that told me that “teaching was for not me.” I don’t think I need to go into what I told her, but she was no longer responsible for my educational file at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
I was more determined than ever to become a teacher, not only to educate students with the appropriate, curriculum based information in the hopes to not only educate their minds, but to educate them in life. So in 2010 I graduated with a B.A in Elementary Education. I also got some pretty sweet surprises along the way, a husband and my hope and motivation, my daughter. It’s a big joke in my family that Lilly has her very own college degree, because when I walked across the stage to receive my diploma I was 5 months pregnant.
Fast forward to 2011, I hadn’t taking my Praxis (NC License Test) for teaching because I was staying home with Lilly and there were layoffs left and right in the Charlotte- Mecklenburg school systems.( No excuse lesson learned. Take test anyway!) It was no surprise that the first time I took it I failed.
I received a job working for CMS in their Bright Beginnings program in the school that I student taught at. I was grateful to be in the school system and thought that this would be a good opportunity to get my foot in the door. My second time taking praxis, I failed. I was starting to get discouraged and older. I was studying but felt that the words started to run together and I eventually forgot what I was studying for.
I was reminded!
One evening while I was cooking dinner, my husband looked at me and said “I think if you don’t pass it this time then you need to look for another career.” This is one of those things where you would never repeat this because you don’t want people to think that your husband is an ass (He’s not) but it’s the truth. For the next 3 weeks Daniel (my husband) was put right up next to my college counselor. I could picture the two of them sitting back and having drinks together. Nope, not happening I was ready. I bet you I rewrote the whole Praxis 5015 study practice book 20 times. I know my husband believes in me, I also believe that he truly knows how to get me going and purposely said this to add the much needed fuel to a fire that was going out.
I decided to register for this form of Satan disguised as a test, the weekend before Christmas. I studied and studied and I even think I cheated on Daniel with index cards one night because when I woke up the next day they were stuck to my back.
Four weeks, I waited for results and today January 17, 2013 I found out that I will finish what I started 3 years ago. I will become a teacher.
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
-Maya Angelou
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