Teacher With Flexibility and Perseverance
Her optimistic attitude has enabled her to overcome multiple career challenges which would have derailed anyone without a similar strong will to succeed. Be inspired!
FAMILY BACKGROUND AND CAREER INFLUENCE
HT was the oldest of four children within her family of African American descent. Her father had served in the military and then transitioned to a civilian career as an employee of the local power company, climbing poles, fixing wiring, and driving trucks. Her mother was a commercial cook who earned promotion to kitchen supervisor. After her parents separated when HT was 3 years old, she was raised by her mother and stepfather, a local municipality’s public works employee as a parks supervisor.
Each of the adults within HT’s family were always employed outside their home.
HT’s eventual adult career path was indirectly influenced by observing that the adults were always working, without any complaint about how hard they were working so she adopted their positive attitudes.
The direct influence of the adults within HT’s family was to tell each child that they should pursue some sort of additional education after graduating from high school: a 2-year (community) college or a 4-year college or a trade / vocational school.
CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER
Always “wanting to help people” HT’s first adult career goal was to become “a doctor” – though not with any specific specialty in mind. Her alternate career goal involved “communications” – broadcasting on radio or television.
SCHOOL DAYS
HT was an above average student during high school, graduating with her original classmates and looking forward to continuing her education after high school, at a four-year college. She knew she would work hard academically and earn the distinction of being the first in her family to graduate from college! However, her family could not afford to send all four children to four-year colleges.
During school vacations, HT earned money in part-time jobs including pizza and ice cream shops, which was helpful but insufficient to fund college tuition and course books. HT would need significant financial aid assistance, from such sources as a scholarship, a work-study program, student loans or a combination of those.
COLLEGE
HT’s personal, first college plan was to enroll in a well-known university’s sports medicine program, located within a two-hour car ride from her home, though she hoped to live on the campus. However, her mother strongly urged HT to avoid that university’s urban setting since she (probably correctly) observed that HT had not yet developed the necessary “street smarts” to cope with the potential distractions and dangers of that urban environment.
Being the oldest child who is typically more willing to listen to parental advice than younger siblings (Editor’s note – an old saying is that “All generalizations are false, including this one” but the behavior of oldest children more willing to follow parental guidance has been confirmed by trained psychologists following broad-based, scientifically conducted studies.), HT willingly shifted her academic focus to enroll in a nearby university in a suburban setting, offering a varied curriculum to prepare HT for a wide range of eventual employment within the health care field, along with “equal opportunity grants” to make the tuition affordable.
Reviewing the catalogue of available college courses and discussing options with her college advisor, HT chose to major in courses toward a career as an exercise physiologist or athletic trainer and finally as a back-up career: teaching.
COLLEGE COURSE PERFORMANCE MAY NARROW CAREER CHOICES
HT’s initial courses toward health science related careers, involved passing all prerequisite courses to continue toward physiologist or athletic trainer careers. However, HT failed one of the required courses and then had to consider her options: (A) wait another year before that required course was offered again or (B) switch immediately to her “back-up” plan: teaching. HT chose to not delay her graduation goal by a full year, so she gladly opted to change her courses’ focus to education.
COLLEGE PREPARATIONS FOR A CAREER IN EDUCATION
In addition to college classroom courses involving general theories of teaching strategies, aspiring teachers are exposed to real-life, away from college, classroom experiences while rotating for 16-week sessions within functioning elementary, middle school and high school classes with actual students and their teachers. The college students both observe and participate as student teachers or classroom aides, according to the needs of the professional head teacher.
To help cover her college expenses, HT qualified for financial aid. She also took out student loans and worked part-time as the student manager of the college’s women’s’ basketball team.
Because HT was switching her ‘major’ she needed five years to complete her course requirements, including student teaching. But graduate she did!
CAREER CHALLENGE – BALANCING FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES
Attending a ‘Jobs Fair” arranged by her college to provide opportunities for soon-to-be graduates to meet with potential employers, HT was fortunate to secure several different offers for full-time teaching positions. HT was not a math major, but she could readily compare the different packages of salary and benefits and thus was able to accept the job offer with the highest financial value.
Promptly securing a job after college graduation was the first of HT’s “3 fortunes” at the time. The second was the timing of her job fair interviews because HT had just learned that she was pregnant but was not yet “showing” as she would later, when the 9-month baby gestation process neared its conclusion.
HT’s third fortune involving her first career job, was to be able to teach full-time (after a brief maternity leave) while entrusting her new daughter to a day-care program located 10 minutes from the school where HT was teaching, so that she could easily commute to breast-feed her baby and quickly return to her school during teaching breaks for as long as that mom-nurturing process was required.
Being able to continue working full-time as a single (unmarried) parent, through pregnancy and birth of a child, enabled HT – because of her persistence – to continue to afford her living expenses, including apartment rent and child-care.
CAREER CHALLENGE – NO PERSONAL FAULT IN LOSING A JOB
Unknown to HT when she started her first career job (though she may have ignored the possibility at the time), her employer school district routinely did not renew the contracts of teachers after their first three years, thus enabling the school district to continue to hire the lowest paid teachers because they would have the least experience and be willing to secure a job with the least pay among the entire teaching staff.
Thus, HT found herself without any job. What to do? Fortunately, a friendly neighbor was married to the warden of a local prison, who had an opening for a certified teacher to educate the prisoners in ‘life skills.’ This job enabled HT to cover basic living expenses for herself and her child. Fortunately, despite a year away from a traditional school setting, HT was able to find a job teaching within a nearby college prep-oriented high school.
JOB SECURITY IN TEACHING MAY DEPEND ON DISTRICT FINANCES
After teaching a year at the high school, six teachers were “downsized” by the school district employer due to reasons never publicly disclosed but usually related to finances, such as: local tax collections are not sufficient or state / federal funding has not been adequately secured or the number of students is declining, and classes can be consolidated for greater ‘efficiency’ (i.e. hiring less teaching staff).
Thus, HT found herself, once again, without a job when she was one of six teachers whose contracts were not renewed for the next school year. So again – now what?
CHANGING A CAREER PATH MAY BE AN ECONOMIC NECESSITY
(Editor’s note – Everyone loves a fairy-tale ending to a story: the frog befriended by the girl turns out to be a prince, they marry and live happily forever in their mortgage-free castle! However, real life is sometimes not so easy – there can be virus pandemics, job layoffs, national economic depressions, and car crashes among the causes of less than happy events despite many sunny days among smiling families and friends.
Sometimes – especially for relatively new teachers who should be attractive new employees for any school district since they can be hired at the lowest teacher union salary levels – there are simply no teaching jobs available. Meanwhile, the teacher’s living expenses continue: rent, food, gas, electric, childcare, clothing, medical and dental, internet, haircuts, birthday gifts, pet food, etc.)
Despite many, many continuing job applications, HT was unable to promptly find a new teaching position. But she didn’t want to “give up” and return to live at home with her baby, without any income, so HT secured a few part-time jobs while she attended vocational courses to earn her certification as a ‘ Massage Therapist’ soon finding such employment at a local day spa while continuing to apply for teaching positions.
One idea for HT to pursue toward returning to teaching was an old idea: participating in one of your college’s periodic job fairs, open to both students and graduates. With her prior teaching experience, HT was fortunate to secure a job as a physical education teacher, where she was happily employed for the first two months until a random event occurred………..
RANDOM EVENT CAN ALTER OR CHANGE A CAREER PATH
Auto accident severity can range from minor (hardly noticing damage to the car or to your neck) to major (severe injuries requiring “jaws of life” to be extricated from your car or even death). Without noting which driver was at fault or describing HT’s injuries as moderate or severe, the net result to HT from her car accident was being unable to work in any career for two full years (!) while she underwent physical therapy to learn how to walk and talk adequately for employment in any capacity.
Employed only two months, HT was not eligible to be insured by the school district’s disability income plan so her only source of income over the two years of her complete physical disability, was a combination of HT’s personal savings and her mother’s help.
Has the reader by now noticed HT’s perseverance to succeed? Thus, it comes as no surprise to the reader that HT pushed herself through extensive, painful, and exhausting physical therapy, to return to as close to ‘normal’ as possible, at least so she could live mostly pain-free and seek employment.
HT’s first post-accident employment was as a substitute teacher at a technical / vocational high school, working as a teacher’s aide within the natural science department, earning a half-salary but with full benefits.
Since then, HT has found full-time employment as a physical education teacher in a middle school setting. During extended school vacations, HT earns a few extra dollars doing something she loves and for which her natural ability as a teacher can shine through to the public: HT is a tour guide / ambassador at a historic museum.
BRIGHT FUTURE ALWAYS PREDICTED FOR THOSE WHO PERSEVERE
(Editor’s note – HT’s recent, hour-long performance as a historic museum’s tour guide – witnessed in person by this editor and friends – was an excellent demonstration of HT’s ability to both enjoy and effectively teach and communicate with all the children and adults in attendance. Hopefully a school administrator will soon be a random guest touring the museum and offer her a teaching position “on the spot”! HT’s perseverance has earned such “luck” which is defined here as “experience meets opportunity.”)
