I Make A Difference....Do You?

My friend Mary over at Life in a Small Town did a post yesterday on making a difference and it was so inspiring that I felt like I needed to follow suit today.  I did not grow up wanting to be a teacher.....heck to be honest when I was in high school....high school was the place I wanted to be farthest away from.  I hated the place.....I am living proof that God has a sense of humor....because here I am 24 years later....at high school....everyday.  When I was a little girl I wanted to be a mommy.  That is what my mom did...and that is what I wanted to do.  When I was in high school I wanted to be a vagabond and travel all over the world with a backpack and a guitar....with no roots to hold me down.  Gone were the days of being a mommy.  I wanted to live in a kibbutz somewhere in Colorado.  You have to remember that I was a product of the 60's/70's.  When I was in college...I wanted to be Dr. Watson B. Duncan III.  I did not want to TEACH....I just wanted to be like him.  I discovered that English was wonderful in his classroom.  When I was 19 I came to Alabama to live with my grandmother and help her out.  I worked in a cotton mill sewing gussetts in thermal underwear....this was not for me!  Eighteen months later...I was back in school to get a business degree.  I married at 21, became a mommy...of two precious little ones (ages 4 and 5).  Ok...so much for a dream fulfilled.  I loved being a SAHM and then when they both were in school I managed my Dad's and Husband's business - Sasser and Harrell Electric Co.  I loved it.  Managing their schedules, bills, etc....it was so much fun.  At 26 I had Kat and life was perfect.  Then it happened!  When Kat was 18 months old....I taught a Sunday School Class and heard God's voice say, "This is where you belong."....I fought it for several months and then one day....stopped in to the bank to make a deposit and saw a sign that said, "Do You Want to Go to College?'....I talked with the bank officer and next thing I knew I was enrolled in college....I was going to be a Social Worker......NOT!  God shut every door imaginable on this journey...and kept opening and trying to shove me through the door to education.  I was not having it!  Finally, when Kat was two....I heeded the call and went into the field of education.....reluctantly.  I blossomed here.  I had been a SAHM for so long that I had lost sight of who I was.....everyone knew me as Ronnie's wife, the kid's mom, my parent's daughter....but no one knew ME!  In college I found not only a passion....but myself.  My first difference....was that I became SOMEBODY!  My first job was in a small county system where I taught part-time for five years.....and still managed the business.  Then, due to proration, I was pinked and without a job.  I thought I would die.  I felt like God had forgotten me.  But...in my darkest hour....he sent me a message.....there was a job opened in Coosa Co.  just for me....I applied and it came down to me....and one man.....the man got the job....but I did not despair here...because he currently had a job at the school I now teach.  I applied for THAT job....and got it...two days before school started.  I didn't care....I was where I was supposed to be.  No...my job is not always a piece of cake....there are days when I am so exhausted when I leave I can barely move.....there are days...like yesterday when a child had a grand mal seizure in my room and I have to react calmly....when I want to run screaming down the hall.  I have had my nose broken trying to break up a fight....I have had my tires slashed in the school parking lot.  But...for every bad thing that has happened...there are countless good ones.  I have several students who teach Spanish now....why?  Because of me........I DID become Dr. Duncan....and I wasn't even trying.  I teach....not for the money....and not for the myth that teachers get three months off in the summer (BTW...we got out June 2nd and started back on August 2nd....and I attended three workshops during that time).....if you are a nurse on a on seven off seven plan....you only work 6 months out of the year....so I wish people would get off our backs about what we make and how many months we work....I don't hear you saying that about nurses.  Nope!  I teach because it is my passion....there is nothing more fulfilling about seeing that lightbulb come on in a student.  I teach because I love these kids.  I teach....because God called me here....and I answered the call.  I teach because this is MY personal mission field.  I teach....because I truly believe I can make a difference.  Happy Thursday and thank you Mary for reminding me why I do what I do.

Watson B. Duncan III

I went to PBJC (lovingly nicknamed Peanut Butter and Jelly College). It was really Palm Beach Junior College. Actually, it was not in Palm Beach it was more in Lake Worth....but it was a great place for me to begin my college education. It was there....that my life path was chosen, unbeknownst to me. I knew at the age of 18 that I loved English....and I loved Shakespeare.....and it was all due to a professor called Dr. Watson B. Duncan III.

At 7:15 a.m. on a clear, Florida, fall day I entered the world of English 201 and Dr. Watson B. Duncan III. He greeted each of us at the door.....he was a large, wise, white-haired, tackily dressed man. We were lead to assigned seats and waited anxiously for the class to begin.

The curtains on the stage, heavy, maroon velvet, parted and there was....A BUNNY? Dr. Duncan was dressed, on stage, in a bunny suit and immediately began the day's recitation....Othello! It was very hard not to think of Othello, or even Shakespeare, as boring with a huge, pink, Easter bunny parading on the stage spitting out the lines of Othello to his audience.

After Act I Scene I ended he stopped, took off the bunny head, sat down on the stage and we had an intense discussion of Othello: Act I Scene I. WE had all paid attention, WE had learned, and his last line to the class was, "It's all in the presentation." I guess it is.

Dr. Duncan is dead now but I imagine him talking in heaven with Shakespeare, or God, in the bunny suit. Everytime I see a production of Othello I visualize Dr. Duncan as he was on that Florida fall day and I chuckle to myself(no one else would understand) and I remember.

You see, it is because of Dr. Duncan and Reverend Michael Jones that I teach today. These two men recognized my potential and pushed me to the limit. Every year I ask myself, "will anyone remember my own antics when I am gone?" Dr. Duncan's favorite quote was, "I teach, therefore I act." He did act and I did learn. He knew what the expression, "seize the day" was all about. I wish I could say, "thank you," to this great man. But I think somehow he already knows.....and he is smiling.

I got a thank you note on facebook last week from a student I had in the early 90's. She thanked me for all I did. She went on to say I inspired her to become a teacher and I started digging in my journals to find the entries about Dr. Duncan. He taught me how to teach her and so today as I sit here I know.....I have succeeded. And isn't that all we want out of life?

God's Sense of Humor

God has a sense of humor. I am living proof of that. When I was a teenager in high school I hated school. There was nothing about it that I liked. I wanted it to be over and four long years of high school later it was. Those four years took an eternity. People used to tell me....you will miss it when it is over....don't wish your life away....but wish I did...and 30+ years later I still don't miss it. My high school years were not good ones. I had friends, but they went to my church. We had a blast together. I never missed a service at church. I lived for Weds. and Sundays. I can't really remember but a couple of teachers during my high school years that made school fun. One was my art teacher and the other was my 10th grade English teacher Mr. Trotsky. He was the only teacher I ever had that sat on the desk to teach....and had us explicate lyrics to popular songs in the poetry unit of Literature. Fool on Hill will always stand out in my mind. Our school was desegregated during my tenure there and that was scary. Life was scary during those years. I went to school during the Vietnam war and it was a frightening time. Boys I knew were drafted and some of them never came back. When you lose a friend to war at the age of 18 it is unsettling. I went to college after graduation....because that is what you did. Neither of my parents had even finished high school....so I wanted to be the first. In college....I met someone who would change my life. His name was Watson B. Duncan III and he taught Literature. I mean....he TAUGHT literature. For the hour I was in his class...the world of the mundane ceased to exist. If first impressions were all there was....I would have missed out on this great man. My first visions of him were of a white-haired tackily dressed man. But when the curtains parted....and there are was a pink bunny on stage and he did the day's recitation of Othello. I have to say it was hard to think of Othello as boring with a huge pink Easter bunny parading on stage quoting lines from Othello. At the end of Act I Scene I he stopped, took off the bunny head, sat down on the stage and we discussed what we had just heard. We had all paid attention. We had all learned. I loved everything about this class. He made Shakespeare, Othello, Falstaff, Cervantes all come to life right before my eyes. He taught us that it is all in the presentation and I guess it was. I took every class he offered. I wish he were alive today. I have so much I would like to say to him. I can imagine him talking in heaven with Shakespeare or God in the bunny suit he wore that first day of class. So back to God's sense of humor...funny things happen. I teach high school. I sentenced myself to a life of being in the place I hated the most when I was 15. The humor in it is that I love being here. I love the smell of the place, I love the kids, I love the people I work with. I love getting up every morning and coming here before anyone else gets here.....(with the exception of Gail....she is always here). I have to ask myself now as I enter my final years of this profession....'Will anyone remember my own antics when I am gone?" "Will some student write a blog about me....in a favorable sense 30+ years after they had me?" Dr. Duncan's favorite quote was, "I teach, therefore I act." He did just that....act...and I did learn. He knew what the expression, "Seize the day!" was all about. I wish I could look at him and say "Thank You," to this great man. But you know....I think somehow he already knows....and he is smiling! Carpe Diem all! Carpe Diem! K