May 18, close modal Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her. I have been and still am an assistant professor in the school of education at Marian University, but the environments, experiences, and my own learning have grown and changed immensely from returning to the classroom 18 months ago. I asked the university for a course release, taking the lectures, research, and strategies into the early adolescent grades. And three and a half semesters later, I am discovering, sometimes failing, sometimes celebrating, but always walking the walk of my graduate students and sharing these experiences with my pre-service teachers. Two mornings a week, I have entered six fifth grade classrooms in three elementary schools in Washington Township, a large Indianapolis public school district. Currently, I am co-teaching in four different seventh grade classrooms.
Of course I know, I hunt to counter. That was altogether changing in the drafty antechamber at the small university 45 minutes from my hometown. I was dropping out. Everyone did, right? But what awaited me on campus was not reinvention. I was toggling back after that forth between being a apprentice and commuting 45 minutes en route for my off-campus job. For the first time, I encountered adults older than me who asked me why I was effective so much and not focusing only on school. I was severely depressed but had denial language to explain it, after that subsequently felt isolated and lonelier than I ever could allow imagined feeling in spaces anywhere I was perpetually surrounded as a result of people.
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