I thought I’d take a moment to introduce myself as the new face of education here at families.com. I bring to the table not only years of experience as a student, but also as a teacher for 12 years and now a parent of five students ranging in grades 4th-8th grade. I have also homeschooled one child for three years. Education is definitely a passion of mine, and since I have been all over the educational spectrum, I’m here to hopefully provide you with answers and tips, as well as information.
As a teacher, I have years of combined experience with teaching early childhood education, as well as art, music and English at the elementary level. I have always been interested in education and have continued to further my own as I go. I served on the Teacher’s council at our local district level at one point. That was an interesting challenge, as we spent far too much time debating what some people strongly felt worked, and what others did not – and not enough time on the students and their needs.
As a parent, I have had experience with private and public education, as well as magnet schools. I have served on the PTA as both an Education Council Delegate and Secretary (no, I really did NOT want to be president or vice – thank you very much). I have also spent countless hours in the classroom in various grade levels as a volunteer and/or assistant teacher. While teaching is my passion – being a mom is first and foremost and I have not returned to the classroom in anything but a temporary assistant teacher position since having children. Yes, I miss it. Will I go back? It is entirely possible in the near future.
As a homeschooler, I have had the best (and worst) of both worlds. The teacher/administrative staff reactions to homeschooling are definitely changing in a positive way and this has afforded me the opportunity to dual enroll my child and allow him to take classes/electives at the middle school while continuing to do our own thing at home. Many people question why I homeschool one but not all of my children and honestly this really is a personal decision. More than likely we will give the school a try this year to prepare him for high school. We shall see. I am not a huge fan of middle school education, so the decision will be tough.
Well, this is the experience I bring to this blog. I look forward to hearing from you all, and getting to know you better. I’m very excited about this opportunity.
We will be spending some time on Back to School Ideas, Tips and Information in the coming weeks.