Earth-Shattering

It's taken me some time to puzzle out my scrambled thoughts, regarding something I found out Thursday evening:

Yes, I can get my Masters in Early Childhood.

No (unless I misunderstood them), not with teaching certification.

I'm frankly not even sure I should be teaching anyway.  I am fantastic at enjoying and influencing children one-on-one.  I have a problem with groups, issues shifting attention and maintaining focus that my previous psychiatrist once said have to do with being bipolar.  (And yes, these are effects that are always there, not just when the bipolar individual is in an episode.)  People who observed me teaching my lesson plans (once last semester, once this semester) saw that.  I can't even handle a group of three to five children, and public school classes have five times that many.

I don't quite know, at this moment, what I'm going to do with my life.  I have a meeting with my advisor on Tuesday; we're supposed to talk about my thesis but I will throw in requests for career advice too.  She holds a PhD in Early Childhood (started the program at my grad school), which is one avenue I am currently considering.  Even though I am good one-on-one with children, no careers of that sort feel interesting or compelling right now.  Not interested in child therapy, social work, or being a para professional.

It's hard to start over at age 26.  26 is not "old-old," but it is old enough that starting over is tricky.  For the last three years, I have wanted to be a teacher.  I fought for teaching; I dreamed of teaching.  Now it isn't going to happen.

One consolation is that now I don't have to put together an edTPA.  The edTPA is a portfolio that goes to the state government, basically saying, "Hey, look, I can teach."  It contains things like lesson plans and videos.  It is truly vast, and teacher candidates put it together while student teaching.  Keep in mind that student teaching is full days in schools, Monday to Friday; that there are class sessions in the evening as well; and that I desperately need nine hours of sleep a night, and really function better with 10.  I was beginning to be worried about where and how and when I would work on my edTPA.

Another small consolation is that I will be getting a new yarmulke as a "consolation prize."  I found one by the same makers of my penguins one that has a pint of green cacti.  I love cacti; I want to own one someday.  It is not an expensive yarmulke (12 dollars); the quality is not great, but the price is right, and my penguins one is actually quite rugged for the quality.  When the new one comes, I will photograph and blog both it and the one I picked up at a Bat Mitzvah yesterday (dark purple canvas; finally, NOT blue and NOT suede or satin!).

So that is my earth-shattering news.  I truly do feel shattered, but I have no doubt I will pick myself up, dust myself off, and carry on.  It just won't be in the way I planned.