Serenity

i remember sitting in dr. carter’s office, ages ago in 2006. i was lost, confused, dissatisfied, and a bit scared, yet excited about the possibilities the world had in store for me. it was my first year teaching, the goal i had worked toward for the past 4 years, and i wasn’t sure it was what i really wanted. now that i had finally gotten to that point, i still felt like there might be something else out there for me. so i called the vcu school of education and asked to speak with an advisor, just to discuss some options. well, anyone who knows terry carter knows she doesn’t just chat about options! so a few months later i was enrolled and starting courses in the master of ed. adult learning program with a concentration in human resource development. i resigned from teaching, took on a part-time job, and became a full-time graduate student at the age of 24.

time has flown by, as it does, and now i’m 27 in 2009, just a few weeks away from graduating from this program. i am still not entirely certain where my path will take me, but i am certain that i am not the same person i was when first i entered dr. carter’s office.
while the earth revolved 3 times around the sun, life led me down many paths toward becoming who i am today. i left my 1st grade teaching job at a prominent west end school, started graduate school, fell in love, bought a house, taught part-time at an east end school, fell out of love, left the house, moved to a fan apartment with a roommate, got a tattoo, went back to teaching full-time as a 2nd grade teacher, fell in love again, became a trained facilitator at a teambuilding ropes course, moved to a new apartment, taught 4th grade, watched the boy i love move away and break my heart, got back on my feet, ran two marathons, and i am now about to graduate with that masters degree i’ve been chasing for the past 3 years.

in my first semester of the program, i completed research methods, program planning, and adult development. this was quite a load with which to jump into the program. during the introductions to each class, i listened as the other students talked about their business careers, husbands, wives, kids, corporate experiences … what was i doing there??? i taught elementary school. i didn’t know anything about conducting research or planning programs for organizations. what did all that even mean?

i felt completely out of place and overwhelmed. i didn’t work in business, and i didn’t even want to. in fact, i had no idea what i wanted to do. this was an incredibly difficult year of my life. i had a part-time job where i didn’t feel like i did anything worthwhile, i was working at an elementary school when i didn’t i wanted to be in schools anymore, and i was sitting there in a classroom with all these “grown-ups” who knew what they were doing and understood this stuff we were learning. i ended up in these conversations that made me feel awful:

so what do you do?
well i was teaching, but now i’m working part time and going to grad school full-time.
oh, that’s great! what are you studying?
i’m getting a masters in education in adult learning and human resource development.
wow, that’s a mouthful! what are you going to do with that?
well,…..i have no idea.

i had no identity, no purpose, no goal. but this started to change over time. i started to learn a few things.

in research methods, i realized that nobody else really knew about conducting research either. it was hard, but it was hard for everyone else too.

in program planning, i realized i actually had planned and implemented programs before. all the study skills programs i developed in college actually were program plans- so that’s what it meant! during that class, we were assigned the task of interviewing a person who does some type of program planning. so i found this woman at j. sergeant reynolds community college who develops programs for first-year students. it was awesome! she did exactly the kind of thing i was interested in doing! i could have a job like that! i was fascinated by her work, and she actually liked hearing about my work at roanoke and the programs i had developed. i left her office feeling totally energized, motivated, excited. i had my direction! i had an idea of what i could do with this degree! it was all starting to make sense.

adult development was my favorite class that semester, and it still remains one of my favorites in the program. i found meaning, wisdom, and direction in daniel levinson, mihaly csikszentmihalyi, and philip graham. levinson taught me about the stages that adults go through as they age, and i was able to see that my confusing, complicated life was perfectly normal. i was in one phase of development, and i would pass through it in a year or so. sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. i still use his book as a reference to explain where i am and to make sense of my interactions with other people in my life. csikszentmihalyi taught me about finding happiness in the state of flow, and i live my life to maximize opportunities for being in this state. i have since found flow in my work, knowing that i am in the right position because i am fulfilled every day, and i find flow in my running, clearing my mind of all life’s difficulty while i conquer miles of pavement and achieve my goals. dr. graham taught me about being human. he took the time to talk with me about my personal issues, mostly the very difficult relationship i was in, and to realize what it was that mattered in relationships, and in life.

in the spring of 2007, i completed the adult learner, instructional strategies, and groups and teams. the adult learner was another course in which i could explore myself and other people through theories of how and why people are the way they are. it was interesting and meaningful. groups and teams was a great experience that taught me about collaborative learning. i have always enjoyed interacting with people, but when it comes to schoolwork, i wanted to do my own work my own way. this course taught me to trust other people and to be willing to open up and share ideas with others. it was a great experience that helped me to work better with other people in any type of setting.

during that spring semester, i still felt a little unsure about what i would do with my degree and why i was there. i felt like everyone else knew what they were doing, and that they looked at me like “why is this part-time elementary school teacher here?” i felt very much like an outsider who was trying to get by.

that summer of 2007, the hrd overview course helped to clarify a few things, like what hrd really was and what it all meant. i still wasn’t sure how it applied to my life experiences, but i was beginning to make connections.

the adults with disabilities class was very interesting and emotional for me. it was a difficult time in my life. i was still in a relationship with someone i had somehow fallen in love with despite all indications that we were a poorly-matched couple. i had felt overwhelmed and stressed all spring- i lived in the west end, drove to work in the east end, played poker twice a week at a bar downtown, drove back to the west end, hung out at another bar there on the other nights of the week, and tried to make a life with someone i was not compatible with. we fought entirely too often, and it was very ugly when we did. i was verbally abused, sometimes physically, and the good times weren’t ever good enough to make it worth the struggle. my head was always spinning faster than i could keep up with, and i was concerned about my mental stability. the guy i lived with even started to convince me that i was crazy. when i started the adults with disabilities class, i racked my brain to determine which disorders fit my symptoms. what did i have? what was wrong with me? i had been diagnosed with adhd after college, so i was on medication for a while and then stopped taking it. i went to a neuropsychologist for testing, trying to determine if i did in fact have adhd and need medication, or if i was depressed, or if it was something else all together. that same summer, the guy and i moved from my townhouse into a house, which we had intended to lease for a year and then buy. i figured if we owned a house together, we might be happier, and then once we got engaged, we’d be happier, and then when we were married, we’d be happier. after we moved into that house, however, i realized that houses and rings don’t make happiness. we would never be happy together; in fact, i would have spent my life miserable. so i moved out, left him, left that life, found a roommate, found an apartment in the fan, and found my sanity again. turns out there was nothing wrong with my mind after all. i was stressed because life was challenging and the person i was with was making it worse. as soon as i ended that relationship, i became a different person. the wheels in my head slowed down, i could focus and concentrate, i was free to make my own decisions, and i was genuinely happy with my life.

that year i also decided to go back to teaching. the part-time position had made me realize that i hated working part-time, and that i liked being in a school. i just hated being in a school but not having a “real” job there. i watched these other teachers run their classrooms, and i found myself wishing i could step up and take over. i wanted to have my own classroom again, to have my own class, and to be able to do things my way. i decided that after all the work it took to become a teacher, i hadn’t given the profession a fair chance. one year in a classroom wasn’t enough to determine whether or not it was the right career for me, especially with all of the other stresses in my life at the time. so i applied to a position at a new school being built in the west end. being a brand new school, the principal was in a position to start fresh and build from the bottom up. he was able to choose from a large number of candidates who were highly qualified and highly interested, and he wanted to choose the very best teachers to start his school. he hired me. that was my sign. he wanted the best, and he hired me. so i realized that i must have something worth sharing with the world, and i was ready to do it.

as i started teaching 2nd grade, i also began my next semester of adlt. in what was my first year of teaching all over again, i studied consulting skills. when the class began, i still had that same feeling of being slightly out of place, thinking people were looking down on me for being “just a teacher.” i even felt like dr. carter was disappointed with me for going back to teaching. i knew she saw me in some other role, and i thought she expected me to be a corporate trainer or something equally “relevant” to this program. but i started to realize that i liked teaching, i had potential, and i was pretty darned good at it. in late november of that semester, i met a boy and fell in love again.

at this point in the program, i had grown quite a bit in my academic skills and my own professional maturity. i had always been a good writer, but i was learning to write in a more technical way and to be proficient at this skill. i was also growing better at presenting and speaking before the class, feeling more comfortable with my peers. i had originally seen my peers as mature adults with all kinds of life experience that i didn’t have, but i began to realize that i was an adult with my own life experiences, and i actually knew more than i gave myself credit for. they could learn just as much from me as i could from them.

learning from my peers was one of the highlights of this entire program. i was able to work with people in a myriad of professions, which helped make me aware of possibilities for “what’s out there.” i was exposed to career paths i never would have encountered otherwise. i made new friends and developed a whole new social network. i learned so much from so many wonderful people, and these encounters were a significant part of my personal journey.

that spring i completed the change strategies course. it was okay. i liked it at first, but for some reason i didn’t like it so much after that. the best thing about the class was meeting carmen, one of my classmates. she was sweet and genuine, and always spoke so passionately about her work. she would tell us about challenge discovery, the teambuilding facility where she worked. i began to take interest in the company, thinking it was something up my alley. so i asked carmen about it, and she gave me an application which led to an interview. my boyfriend had found the same company the same day i decided to look into it, and we coincidentally applied for the same job at the same time. the interviews led to two intense weekends of training that felt like we were on survivor. it was an incredible experience, and i learned a tremendous amount of technical skills and practical applications about being a facilitator who builds trust and team work in groups. this experience has tied in perfectly with the adult learning program. it has been great for me to connect all i’m learning in graduate school with the team building facilitation and my teaching career. each one lends so much to the others, and my skills in all areas have blossomed tremendously as a result.

meeting carmen was the best part of change strategies. the rest of it bothered me. on one of our papers, we were told to be creative. so i got creative, and i wrote a paper i was really proud of. it touched on the key points we were learning, and it was artistic and unique. when it came back, i was ready to see that A on top….instead i found a C and a note saying i had “missed the mark.” i was livid. i was told to be creative, so i was, and i “missed the mark.” not even a bit of commendation for my unique presentation of the material. so on the next paper, i wrote the most cut-and-dry, straight-off-the-template, inside-the-box paper… and of course it came back with an A. this was an eye-opening experience for me. i realized that “creativity” only means so much in professional writing. i missed the creative writing classes i had in college. i missed the personal narratives of adult development.

the next fall i found myself in educational evaluation and organizational learning. this was a difficult semester for me. i had left 2nd grade and started teaching 4th grade. this was a wonderful move, and i am thrilled with this grade level; however, i found myself starting over again as a “new” teacher. in addition to this, my boyfriend who i had spent the past 11 months with decided it was time for him to leave richmond and seek his own personal learning experience. he had not gone to college, so he needed to go away and find himself elsewhere. he moved to colorado in september, where he began his training in outdoor leadership. a month later, he decided he needed to fully focus on himself at that time, so he let me go. i was devastated, as i had thought he was “the one” and we’d find that happily ever after. but i also knew i had fallen for a caterpillar who would one day turn into a butterfly and fly away. so my heart was broken, and i was pretty sure i was out of the game for good.

a little while later, however, i picked myself back up. i realized how much i can do on my own, and how precious this time is to me in the long run. once i find the “one” and settle down, i’ll be bound forever. this is my time to be free and explore the world on my own. it’s my time to be a butterfly and spread my wings. and i also need to get to know myself better before i’m ready to share myself with someone else. i ran my first marathon a month later, one of the proudest accomplishments of my life. i proved to myself that I could conquer a dream that had once seemed impossible. i’ve even run another marathon since then. the past 7 months on my own have actually been really wonderful. the only time i have trouble is when the boy calls and says he misses me and wants me in his life. this confuses my heart and causes me stress, but i take one day at a time. we’ll see each other in 2 weeks, just before graduation. i don’t know what to expect, but i’ve learned that sometimes it’s best not to have expectations at all. sometimes we have to let life happen without trying to predict it in advance.

my knowledge of levinson has helped quite a bit. i found myself picking up the seasons of a man’s life right after the break up. levinson explained the differences this boy and i had, based solely on our age. we may have a lot in common and a great connection, but with 4 years between us in our twenties, we are in different life stages, so we’re viewing the world from different perspectives. this makes perfect sense. it helps to be able to apply a theory to the situation, rather than dealing completely with the ambiguous emotions in my heart.

organizational learning was an interesting class, but i found myself a lot more distant than i had been in the rest of the program. i would sit through class with a million thoughts in my head and a heavy burden on my heart. i barely heard anything that was spoken, and i seldom contributed to class discussions. i really enjoyed the cultural analysis paper, getting to view my own organization from a very different perspective, but otherwise, i was very much absent from the course. the best part about it was the blog. i was able to create my own blog site, and i was required to reflect on the class sessions and my readings. i loved the blog. i could go back to my personal writing that i missed so much during change strategies. i could vent my frustrations, reflect on my personal changes, and enjoy feedback from my classmates. i did censor myself a bit and try to focus on topics relevant to the class, but even then it was therapeutic for me to just think and write. i wish i’d started the blog during my very first semester. just think how much i could have reflected on in the past 3 years.

now here i am in the capstone course, winding down the final few weeks. i worked with a group of people i had never worked with before, and it turned out to be a great experience. at first i was thrown by the perspective i perceived in my teammates. i felt like they looked down on me because i was much younger than they were, and i was “just a teacher” with no business knowledge. as the project went on, however, i proved to my group that i had something to bring to the table. i have my own experiences and skills that are different from theirs, but no less significant. it has been really fun to work with luck stone during this course. i’ve loved being able to see all sides of a corporation i would never have been exposed to. i love opportunities to learn about new people and places in the world. this is something we don’t experience often enough once we enter the working world. people find their niches and stay there, and we rarely discover what else exists around us. overall, i’m happy with the progress my group made, and i think our final product is something to be proud of.

i’m having trouble remembering which course it was, but in one class i was required to interview someone in the field of hrd. i ended up meeting a woman who worked for the staff development department of henrico county public schools. this was an incredibly beneficial assignment for me. it was similar to my experience with the lady at jsrcc in that i left there with a new sense of direction and motivation. i learned that i can get a few more years of teaching experience under my belt, and then i can possibly go into staff development. in that field, i could work with teachers to develop their skills, which would apply my knowledge of adult learning to my interest in education. i can be a mentor trainer or staff developer, or maybe someday i’ll go to a college and train future teachers. i know that there are possibilities out there for me, and right now i’m happy with my current position.

i love my life of teaching, learning, and teambuilding. i leave work every day feeling happy and fulfilled. my students mean the world to me, and their parents are frequently telling me how much i have impacted their children. children who struggled for years have suddenly made the honor roll, are talking about going to college, and have ambitions for potential careers. i know i have made this difference for those kids. my job is important, and i am proud of it. i no longer struggle to define myself or worry about what my peers think of me. i am a teacher, and i make a difference.

this program has opened doors to endless possibilities and taught me so much about the world and about myself. that girl who entered dr. carter’s office in 2006 has grown into a strong, capable woman with tremendous potential.

It’s hard to believe that we’re near the end! I am really excited about my Capstone work. My group turned out to be wonderful. We worked very well together. We were really comfortable discussing our ideas and expressing our opinions. We respected each other, and each of us pulled our own weight. I enjoyed learning from the work and life experience of my teammates, and it was fun getting to know them better.

Our work with Luck Stone was really fun. I had been nervous starting this course, because I’d heard from other students that it was like having another job. It really wasn’t so bad. It was definitely demanding, but we took it all in stride and did one step at a time, and everything turned out really great.

I enjoyed the exposure to Luck Stone, a company I never would have known anything about. The people we worked with there were interesting and enthusiastic, and they helped make our project a great experience.

Our final client presentation will take place this Thursday, and I’m excited. I’m actually not feeling nervous, because I know my group has a great product and we know our stuff. I’m really proud of the work we did, and I’m very happy that we’re so close to being finished!

so my last title asked if it’s winter already, and now it’s spring.  i guess i haven’t written in a while!  i actually miss having the blog as a class requirement.  i enjoyed writing on here.  i love writing, especially personal writing.  the blog is a nice outlet.  i suppose i could continue to write on here, even though it’s not required…