Teaching is out the door

Hey friends! It has been a while since I have written a blog entry. This has been a messy past few months. Money has been hard, I have had to move to a new apartment, student teaching did not work out, and I got into a new job. I just now managed to get things back into good shape. I am happier again, and I feel less stressed. Let me summarize how these last few months went.

Starting with student teaching, this was a risk in the beginning. My adviser last year tried to recommend I find a different career because she was concerned that teaching was going to be harder than I envisioned. I chose to keep going because I wanted to know myself through experience if it was something I could do or not. It took me until I was student teaching to realize it really is a more complicated job than it appears from a students perspective. I did not realize being a special education teacher was more than just teaching students. You have to develop relationships with parents, manage paraprofessionals, write IEP's, set up meetings, communicate with all the general education teachers.....you basically are another administrator but you are getting paid like a teacher because that is your job title.

Another thing that made student teaching hard was that my placement was awkward. I was put into a classroom with another student teacher who happened to also be the teachers girlfriend. Because I do not want to tarnish anyone's reputation, her name will be left out. This was hard because it made me feel like I was being shadowed even further than I anticipated. Not only was I working under the teachers shadow, but I was put under hers as well. I was always 3 steps behind her because she was able to ask questions and talk about it outside of work. I did address this as a concern to the teacher and he promised me he would keep it 50/50, but after a couple weeks, I realized that was not happening. She always had the 1st choice, and I could tell he was teaching her outside of school. On top of that, because she dated the teacher, she seemed to feel like she was a co-teacher. She would manage me more than the teacher did. She also was not very respectful of my feelings. I would go home feeling like garbage because nothing I did seemed good enough for her. It was a whole jumbled mess. I ended up having to withdraw from student teaching and all classes associated with it.

Unfortunately this created a new mess. Due to withdrawing, the University of Utah ended up charging me over 3,000 dollars which only added to my stress. Because I had that huge balance, I was not allowed to register for classes in the spring. (Which I should add I switched my major to Family and Consumer Studies and only need one semester to get a bachelors for!) I ended up filing a petition and asked others for letters of agreement on the petition. It would take over a month for the income accounting office to come to a decision, which they ended up accepting my petition. Thank goodness!!

Due to all this, cutting out teaching and not feeling like I was good enough to work in the classroom, I went into a depression for a few weeks. I started having doubts about myself and my future. I began eating horribly again, and overall I had a hard time caring about my overall well-being. Thankfully, my Mom was willing to talk to me, even if I needed to call her more than once a day. She would always remind me how far I came, and how successful I have been. She also reminded me how good of an employee I have been in years past and that this just happened to be a situation where I had bad chemistry. To quote her "you have always been amazing working with kids with disabilities and you are easy to work with. You are just butting heads with a coworker, which I have never seen you do until now. You are letting her tear you down. You need to either find a new teacher to work for or find a new job". After hearing this, I started to feel motivated again because I realized she was right. I ended up doing exactly what she advised and looked for a different job.

At first I was going to request a new teacher to work with, but it only took me a couple days to realize I would be better off finding a new job entirely. Working as a paraprofessional no longer was getting me anywhere due to me not aiming to be a teacher anymore. I decided I still want to help people with disabilities because they were the reason I wanted to be a teacher in the 1st place. I was able to find a job quickly at Columbus Community Services. I have now worked here for 3 weeks and so far, I feel very proud that I made the decision to jump ship. I get along with my coworkers much better, I am still helping people with disabilities, and I have promotional opportunities offered if I stay here a few months and get my bachelors degree. All this has made me feel much better about myself, and less stressed. I love this new job and am excited to see where it gets me.

Since I found a job where I feel like I fit in better, I have been eating better again, I have been hanging out with friends more, and I have been sleeping much better. My overall health has been amazing. Thanks for reading. If this sounded like a rant, it was not intended to be like that. This is an update about what happened the last few months and how I was able to fix it! Thanks friends and family for sticking with me and encouraging to push on. I love all of you!

The Wrong Song-Hemlock at Stanley's Triangle Bar at Mt. Pleasant, Utah

Fall 2016: A Rollercoaster of a Semester

My 3rd semester at the University of Utah was one of the rockiest semesters I have experienced. I say it is in competition with my last semester at Dixie State University which was definitely tough considering I had to cut my work hours, say no to track and field, and just simply grind by to get my associates degree. This semester, Fall 2016, was in its own unique way very tough! However, it was also one of my funnest semesters considering how many concerts I went to, plus my brother Brennan's marriage to Mars Petrilia.

Because I want to end this post on a good note, I will start with what made this semester a huge grind. The biggest thing that stands out was my Math 4020 course. Last spring semester, I took Math 4010 which is Algebra for Elementary Teachers I. Math 4020 was the next level course for that class. 4010 focused on math basics such as addition, subtraction, fractions, etc. The professor was really good at teaching how to teach the concepts. He would give us basic math questions, but he would give you points for explaining it to him like you would a kid. Would you use base blocks? What are some helpful tips to make it make sense to the student? Math 4020 was FAR from that. The focus in this class was geometry and data. I had a different professor in 4020 and she teached it like it was another Math 1050 course but she gave even harder questions. There was hardly, if any, learning how to teach the geometrical concepts to the kids. It grew mega frustrating as the semester went by and even reached the point where us students in the class were communicating with each other about what we should report to the dean explaining how the class was not giving us what we enrolled for. I ended up getting a C in the class, but it was irritating enough that I happily accept that grade knowing I never have to go to that exact class ever again. If one good thing came from that course, it was the unity of having each others backs because all of us were irritated about the same thing. It pretty much made us all good friends in that course.

Another thing that made this semester really hard was that I ended up having an ER visit for having the first episode of muscle tremors that I had in nearly 4 years. During one of my classes, my neck and shoulders started swinging with out my control. I was so shocked about it happening that I ended up crying on the phone. Everyone seemed to agree that the reason this happened is that I hit that breaking point of stress considering this is believed to be a stress-induced condition. I think I got overwhelmed because I did not expect Math 4020 to run like it did, nor did I expect people I respected to tell me I should consider thinking of a different career outside of teaching special education. It later led to me deciding to just go to college for a while and putting off going to work. The nice thing about this is that everyone has been very supportive about this. I did not have to feel guilty about quitting my job so I can focus on college.

About being advised to reconsider my career, I don't want to share to many details about what that was because I think it is something between me, my college adviser and my family. I do want to share though that I am not closing the door completely on working towards a career in teaching students with disabilities. I am open to other ideas however. My ultimate plan at the moment still stands. I want to get my teaching certificate and try to prove to myself whether or not it is the right career choice for me. I still see my primary goal as becoming a special education teacher and coaching basketball along with that. I have been chasing this goal since I was a sophomore in high school, and I am not about to let a couple authority figures opinions deter me from that with out proving to myself first. I really respect the people who recommended this. I have nothing against them. It just ultimately comes down to what I want most and what I feel is the best route for me.

OK! Enough of the hard stuff. Outside of all this, I had a ton of fun this semester. I got to see a lot of rock and heavy metal bands like I never thought I would be able when I was living in St. George. Some bands that stood out to me were Hemlock, The Pretty Reckless, Halestorm, and Escape the Fate. I am glad I went and saw Black Sabbath because I really admire the group, but as a whole, their concert was rather dull compared to the rest. I did not feel like they played with as much energy and passion as the other bands did. Do mind, I don't really blame them considering they have been playing for much longer than the other groups, but I still would have liked to see something memorable happen at the concert besides being in the amazing presence of Ozzy Osbourne.

Lastly, one brief thought. I am now academically in my senior year of college. I plan to graduate with my bachelors degree in Spring of 2018. Due to this, I think it is becoming more important that I consider where I want to place myself when I am done going through college. I have really enjoyed Salt Lake City, and I don't think I would mind living here, but there are other places I have considered living where I would love to work. Others include Moab, Logan and Cedar City. I also am not shutting the door completely on St. George. I have often said that St. George does not offer enough in terms of my hobbies and passions. There are hardly any concerts, gaming leagues, and there is not any professional basketball. However St. George does offer one thing that the other places would have a hard time offering and that is a family like sense of community. Since moving to Salt Lake City, I have often missed the Region 9 sporting community. Whether I was an assistant coach for girls basketball, or an assistant for track and field, there was always that amazing sense of belonging. The coaches, teachers and administration were like an extended family. We all had similar goals, had each others back, and we all cared about the students we were teaching. I still strongly want to have that back in my life but right now my bachelors degree is my main priority. If anything is going to drive my decision to return to St. George and just settle my career there, that is going to be the reason. Just knowing that if I want to be involved, and there are people who would love to let me be apart of it is a very motivating reason to be in St. George. Again, I have not set my mind to that, but I am not disclosing it either.

Anyway, I hope you all have a good start to the new year. Thanks for following me. I will write again soon! You guys are the best!