How Do You Get There from Here?

"Well, you take a right at the redlight and go about a mile.  Then hang a left at...."

I did not always want to be a teacher.  I am not even sure I always wanted to be a college professor.  The path my career took toward teaching in higher education curved and included a detour or two.

After high school, I set off on a path that should have led toward a job with the Foreign Ag Service or the State Department.  I majored in agricultural economics with an emphasis on international trade.  Grades for graduate school were not the issue.  Finding a job that was not in agricultural chemical sales was.  I held a sales job in high school and knew sales and marketing were not for me.  By my junior year in college, I knew I needed a career change, but I was on scholarship.  How could I finance my education if I changed majors outside of the College of Agricultural Sciences?

After a visit with a friend of the family (who was also chair of the education department) at Trinity University, a clearly marked detour emerged.  I could use my last year to complete leveling coursework and matriculate to Trinity’s fifth year Master of Arts in Teaching program for secondary social studies education.  I student-taught in inner-city San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD) in the eighth and sixth grades at the peak of a gang war.  To gain additional experience, I agreed to substitute at the school where my mother was yearbook and newspaper sponsor. By the end of the summer of my “fifth year,” I secured a job in Judson Independent School District (JISD), a large suburban district near San Antonio, Texas, as one of thirteen geography teachers for their large, single high school.

For four years, I taught world geography and world history.  I helped pilot a vocational technology course – The World of Ecology – for students interested in environmental careers.  I mentored students in Advanced Social Science Problems and even taught summer and night school for students trying to recapture credit in their social studies courses.  I loved my job and my colleagues, but I had started making a 70-mile one-way commute to work due to a move.  (I had moved to what was once part of my great-grandparents homestead with my growing herd of Morgan horses.)

With gas prices soaring to $0.95 per gallon, I made a move to a school about half the distance as my previous job.  I agreed to teach United States history (post-Civil War) and sponsor the dance team.  My second year at the new campus, the principal agreed to let me teach my passion – ninth grade world geography.  I loved my job and my colleagues, but again I felt the need to do more.  I wanted to be able to teach a dual credit course in geography for our rural students.  I started looking into graduate programs, and the author of my students’ textbook worked just 100 miles away.  I scheduled a visit to Texas State University-San Marcos (then Southwest Texas State University).

It became clear that I could not seek the degree I wanted without becoming a full-time graduate student.  Becoming a full-time graduate student meant: a $10,000 per year pay cut; I couldn’t pay into Teacher Retirement System (TRS); and I couldn’t pay into social security.  So, I sold my parents my car, and they agreed to make payments on my pick-up.  They bought me a laptop – for the car – and I was free to keep the horses at the farm and pay rent on an apartment in San Marcos, Texas, for the next four years. 

Not quite through with my dissertation at that time, I returned to teach in SAISD.  An acquaintance I’d met through the Texas Alliance for Geographic Education (TAGE) was department chair at one of the high schools and welcomed me into her department – first as a world history teacher and then as a geography teacher.  With help from family and friends, I finished my degree (in my sixth year of study) and began looking for jobs in higher education.  All the while, I taught high school geography during the day and as an adjunct professor at night for one, two, and sometimes three of the Alamo Community Colleges.  I finally made the jump to teacher education when one of the ACC campuses was expanding their alternate route program and needed a new staff member.

While working with the alternate route teacher candidates, one of my other applications began to bear fruit.  University of Mississippi asked me for an on-site interview.  I had been to Oxford, Mississippi, on a mother-daughter road trip of historic and literary sites a decade earlier.  Nothing prepared me for the whirlwind of the interview or my response.  OleMiss offered me the position, and I phoned my fiancé from the Memphis airport.  “Can you live in Mississippi?” 

 Within a month, we made a trip to Oxford to look for a house, bought a house, found a job for him, and school started.  All of this while continuing to plan a wedding in Texas for Thanksgiving weekend.

How do you get there from here?

Which route do you want to take?  US-79 to IH-20 to IH-55, IH-35 to IH-30 to IH-40 to IH-55, or IH-10 to IH-12 to IH-55.  They’ll all get you there.


Note to my EDSE 447 students (Fall 2011):  The above narrative is approximately 900 words, three pages, typed, double-spaced, 12 pt. font in MSWord.  Your first blog post may be a bit shorter -- 600 to 700 words.  You are not required to add hyperlinks to this assignment, but it is encouraged.