Love, Pregnancies, and Politics:
My Crazy Career Path
I am currently in the middle of my 6th year teaching elementary art. While that doesn't make me an expert by any means, I think that the unusual journey I've taken in my relatively short career has given me a broader experience (and therefore more to share) than you'd expect after only 6 years. Why? Because I have worked in 4 different schools, each in different districts, in two different states.
I studied Art Education at Penn State, and was basically told the entire time that I would not find a job teaching art in Pennsylvania. At least, not right out of college. So after graduation, I accepted a job in Ashburn, VA (30 miles outside DC) and lived and worked there for two years. Shortly after I'd moved there, though, I rekindled a college romance with a guy that lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
Thinking he might be "The One", I quit that job and moved out to live with him. The first year I lived in Pennsylvania, I had to take a job in New Jersey, which was about 45 minutes away, and it was only a long-term substitute position at a tiny, rural, K-8 school. (Middle school- ick.) The regular art teacher came back from maternity leave and despite fitting in really well, there wasn't room or need for both of us :(
Luckily, I found another job, also still in NJ, for the next school year. This time, it was a tenure-track position, meaning it was all mine! To this day, it was the best school and best classroom that I've had.
Halfway through that school year, I realized (albeit not quickly enough) that that boyfriend was not "The One". We broke up and I moved out, moving closer to that school near Princeton, NJ (yay for 10 minute commutes!).
I made awesome new friends, met a new boyfriend and created a new life in Princeton. I was actually really happy... which only made it that much more heartbreaking when NJ Governor Chris Christie decided he was going to attack the schools and cut almost a billion dollars from state funding for education. Guess who gets cut? Non-tenured, specials teachers. The other young Spanish, Music, and PE teachers in my school and I were all laid-off for no fault of our own.
I applied to 35 districts in New Jersey and only one other district out of state. Guess where I got the job? Out-of-state, back in Northern Virginia where I started (just one county closer to DC this time).
I am now in my second year in this district, and am once again really happy. Life is so crazy, but it can be so good too!
