Teaching...

I have been looking for a job for a little while now, things I am familiar with like receptionist or secretarial type work, but also in an environment that I know I will be comfortable with. While pursuing through available jobs in a Native corporation in Anchorage, I found a listing for Science Teacher.

I knew about a program through the local school district that works with Native kids almost on a tutoring level so I didn't realize they had actual teachers working for them. I of course clicked the link and read up on it.Yup a full blown 4 year college, teaching certificate teacher. I was a little disappointed about the list of what you needed to teach young minds. But, I was pleasantly surprised that I had actually anticipated finding out whether I could qualify for a job like that.

I had thought my "teaching bug" was something I decided would not happen in this lifetime. I had thoughts of college and earning a teaching degree. I knew I wanted a pack kids, but something in me said, you can have that horde and a million more if you were a teacher. However when I got pregnant and married (yes, in that order) working on a goal like that would end up being pretty unfair in the short run to a young family. It was something that I let going knowing I would have kids and they would be my own. I was, and am, happy about that.

Then something happened back when my eldest daughter was 10. My husband and I being rabid baseball and softball fans, and former little league participants, thought our kid would probably have fun playing softball for our local little league. In my mind, she was the ultimate superstar. She was so willing to learn and try everything they were showing her on the field in practice and at games. She even decided she wanted to work on pitching, and I had NEVER seen a kid push themselves as hard I had seen her at one of our last All-Star games. On the mound, all red faced and tired, trying her damnedest to make the pitches hittable or strike them out right at the plate. She was never perfect, but her attitude and her willingness to keep going earned superstar points from me.

Of course my focus was on my kid, what parent wouldn't think to come up with ways of how this could be better, or how could we buy her that to help her out? But I noticed something else. I watched the coaches, I wanted people around her that would be of value, people who would care and be there for her. They pretty much bar parents from rushing on to the field and giving their kid some one on one instruction on how to make a proper throw or stop a ball, or to keep their chin up-it's okay, totally understandable. But what I noticed is that the coach seemed to pretty stressed. She was a sweet and young gal. She was great with the kids, understanding and helpful, she cared. But she always seemed to not be able to please every parent all the time. It was a lot for her and she resigned shortly before All-Stars started. That sorta left the team out to dry, but luckily the league arranged for a coach from another league to help out, we had to combined with this second league to make an All-Star team anyways and he was more than happy. He did need a 2nd coach to help out. I of course volunteered my husband. We had coach some beginning skill level girls the first 3 years of our marriage, but life got in the way and we never went back when I own kids needed us more, but I had thought he would be a great addition.

How much better it felt to have a little more control in molding those young minds, I can't tell you. I didn't disagree with the young gal who started us off, but I knew that I had some knowledge that could be useful for this group of girls. When the opportunity presented it's self, my husband and myself were able to coach the group of the girls on our own, we took it. I relied on George to make sure we got the strategic and technical stuff down, I worked on skills and team building. I didn't know that I would be walking into a sort of Nirvana. I had found a zen.

I am sure that most of those girls would want to clobber me, for all the silly little mundane drills on technique and body movement, but I loved to see them execute perfectly, or attempt it even if it was a fail. I did that for 10 years. I ended up having the "millions of kids" I wanted. A few of them I wanted to take home and call them my own. A lot of them I still see today, adults (I feel OLD) and talk with them about life. Of course there is a couple of them I give hugs and encouragement to when they need it, just like when they were kicking themselves for missing that fly ball.

I got to teach them something. I am sure my goal was this technique for pitching or that move for base running, but I think I taught them more than that. I like to hope I taught them more than that. I became a teacher without going to school, without a teaching certificate, with only my love of the game and my heart to give them my all. I got to live a dream, and I didn't take time to drink it in. I have not been on the field in two years to coach, I really do miss it terribly. But I have budding thoughts in my mind that are getting hard to ignore.

I can always find away to be out there and teach, I suppose, and maybe it is a time in my life I need to look at that again. If I could find a way to get out there and mold young minds, I believe I am gonna do it, and I don't think it's all the Pink Floyd I have been listening to that is talking. It's one of the few things about me I really love bragging about, and maybe that is a sign. So in the way life works, maybe this is the beginning of another journey, who knows? I might tell you about it when I get there though, just you wait and see.