“Where are you from?” always feels like a trick question. I want to respond by saying, “What exactly do you mean? Where am I currently living? Where was I born? Where is my family? Which galaxy do I call home?” All of these questions have different answers. I am currently living in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I was born in Kailua, Hawaii. My family resides in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, and I am modestly proud to call the Milky Way home. Since the “Where are you from?” query most often arises in small talk, I try not to confuse my new acquaintance with a complicated reply. I usually say, “I grew up in the Air Force.”
I loved it. Sameness and routine do not sit well with me, and every so often, I get a moving itch. Really, really bad. Sometimes I can scratch it with a long vacation, a new job, or a major life change like buying a house or adopting a pet. But these are only temporary fixes, and I know that soon I start feeling stifled and stuck in a rut.
Of all the jobs in the world, teaching is undoubtedly the best job for people who are allergic to routine. No two days are remotely alike. Even after five years of working at the “same” job, I still go into work each morning feeling like I’m staring down a black hole, with almost no idea of what to expect. That’s one of the reasons I love my job so much; it is the utter antithesis of boring and predictable. Every day I’m met with new questions, new deep and surprising insights, new stimulating discussions, new creative excuses for late homework.
I’ve taught a hodgepodge of subjects over the years–everything from yearbook to logic to church history to health (yes, health) to classical literature. Some of them, like world literature, I relished. In fact, I practically turned cartwheels over the chance to open students’ minds to great ideas couched in great stories. Others I was less than crazy about teaching. I found it challenging when teaching health, for example, to get teenagers excited about flossing and eating a balanced diet. The thing is, I love learning so much it’s almost an addiction, and the best way to learn something is to teach it. So when a harried principal, frantically trying to fill positions before school starts, asks me to teach a new subject, my mantra has always been, “Sure, I can teach that!” The result has been that I have never once taught the same set of classes for two years straight, and I usually have 4-5 preps. It doesn’t matter, though. I could have a blast teaching Accounting for Government Agencies, because it’s the students that make teaching the best job on the planet.
This year, however, will be different. I will have four brand new preps, and all of them will be English classes. I think the result of matching my love for students with my love of the subject matter will be electrifying. I can’t wait to open up the worlds of Whitman and Hawthorne and Steinbeck and Bronte and Shakespeare to my kids and see how they respond.
A few words now about family. The concept “home” holds little meaning for me, since I’ve never lived anywhere more than four years. ”Family,” however, is a powerful concept full of deep and profound meaning. Moving frequently and being homeschooled meant that my family of six (four girls of which I am the oldest) became very close-knit. We have our individual quirks, but all six of us are extremely alike.
Today, my family consists of my husband Tim and our Korean exchange student, Daniel. I met Tim at college during the first week of our freshman year when I was a precocious little 17-year-old. We were always good friends, and our love grew gradually out of a firm and lasting friendship. Like me, he was homeschooled. Like me, he was used to transition, growing up partly in rural South Carolina, partly in Bourg d’Oisans, France. Like me, he spent his spare time hiking in the woods and reading great books. Since we were already good friends, we didn’t need to date for very long, and we got married three days after graduating from college.
Finally, and most importantly, my faith in God and in the substitutionary atonement of His Son Jesus Christ, is the defining aspect of who I am. As Charles Wesley so beautifully describes it, “I woke; the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off; my heart was free; I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.” And this is my calling: “Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily” (Colossians 1:28,29).
