They Called Me, Mrs. Jasmine: How Becoming a Teacher Healed Me

Verse of the day: Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."

Being "Mrs. Jasmine" was one of the greatest privileges of my life.

Becoming an educator taught me a great deal about life and ways to navigate this world. I've always felt that maybe God allowed me to teach, in order to show me that I was capable of more than I thought. In many ways, teaching saved my life. I was 19 when I became an assistant/floater, I'd recently left my fast food service job where I'd been, for lack of a better word "attacked" by a manager. This experience scared me in terms of how I viewed leadership, especially if they were a woman.

I'd be trained and mentored for two years before I am given my first class as a lead.

I always refer to my first 4 years of teaching as my "golden years" I was good at what I did and everyone knew it. I felt good about being a teacher, I loved my students and their success was my own. I was known for my whimsical and fun loving nature, dressing up during special holidays, decorating my classroom every week to match our theme and providing enriching activities for my students each day, all with a smile and can-do attitude. I was young, excited and filled with a seemingly never ending supply of energy. It was one of the most beautiful chapters of my life. My students blossomed and thrived under my care and it was regarded highly by most who knew me and even those that didn't.

But just like all good things, it always comes to an end....

Burnout killed my love for teaching and a lack of genuine support made me vow that once I'd left, I'll never do it again.....It saddened me because I'd grown to care for it so much. I'd learned what it truly meant to be responsible for myself through my responsibility of others. I learned how to manage and promote peace in a classroom of 12-25 students between the ages of 2-5. I learned the importance and means of caring for myself in caring for the needs of others. The oddest thing of it all was just how familiar it all felt to me, as if just as my hands were meant to hold a paintbrush or a pen, they had also been made to hold and guide a small hand toward their own purpose as I'd been. It was a new pain for me....I've never had a passion die before.

Looking back on everything now, I believe maybe I did not want to be a teacher only because I felt I would not be very good at it.

I found my greatest joy and reached my lowest low in a classroom...and for both, I am thankful.

"For the love of life and the pursuit of the arts, stay prayerful and write on."