Living My Childhood Dream

According to stories told about me by my mother, as a first grader I had learned all I need to and was ready to drop out and start my own preschool.  I've always loved school, but even more then school I enjoyed playing school when I got home.  Thank goodness for my three little brothers who helped me fulfill my dream.  I would line them up, have them come into class, make them say the pledge of allegiance and then sit in their desks.

There was also time that my mom ran a preschool co-op with other moms of preschooler and I enjoyed going through their materials and designing my own lesson plans.  My favorite days were the days I was out of school and my mom was teaching preschool, cause I got to be her assistant of course.

Even in fifth grade I stayed true to my dream and wrote a paper about what I was going to be when I grew up.  I even planned out how I was going to need small chairs and tables for all of my students, this was going to be my only overhead cost, or so my fifth grade mind calculated and included in my figures.  It's when I got into college and was sitting in classes with tons of other women aspiring to be teachers that I abandoned my dream.  I figured we didn't know better, since school is all we had known since the age of five.  So I left the school of education and pursued a degree in social work.  Yes one can still work with kids in various fields of social work, but there is so much red-tape, paper trails, and office time, YUCK!

My own little table and chairs, finally.

So this posing is a tribute to my little brothers for being my first students and to the mothers and kids that are now involved in our preschool co-op.  Thank you for helping me remember my dream and allowing me the privileged of interacting with you and your children.  And to my sister-in-law Stacy, who is a real teacher that I can live vicariously through, thanks!