Answering the Call
My entire life I have wanted to be a teacher. If you had asked me at age 5, 15, or even 25 what I wanted to be when I “grew up” I would have answered, “I want to teach!” Everyone in my family works in some type of service industry. My Papa and uncle are Police Chiefs. My aunt Kathy, cousin Holly, as well as my mother are all teachers. My Aunt Debbie and Grandma are both nurses. On my mother’s side of the family, helping others is just something we do. This may be due to our faith. We are all Christians and giving to the community is somethingthat had been ingrained in our beings.
Currently, I am the only person in my family without a college degree. While never spoken aloud, I have the feeling everyone looks down on me because of this. I feel like the proverbial “black sheep” of the family. Ever since I graduated from high school, I intended to go to college. Every two years or so, I would call for brochures, check out websites, and make a sort of, kind of, maybe game plan to go back to school. However, every time I made the first move, something would occur in my life that I used as an excuse to put it off longer. I got married at a young age and intended to start a family right away. “What is the point of starting college, then having to take off to have the baby? I will just wait until after I have a baby to start,” I rationalized to myself.
During the seven years it took for me to get pregnant, I found many other justifications to delay. If it wasn’t a new job, we were moving. Then I finally did get pregnant. My two sons we born eighteen months apart and following that, I argued with myself that I was just too busy to deal with studying.
Life marched on and through the year my marriage was in the process of ending, going to college never crossed my mind. After all, I had bigger things to worry about. At least that is what I thought.
A year after my divorce, I married a man who was honestly the answer to my prayers. For the first time, I had someone supporting and encouraging the idea that I finally get my degree and fulfill my calling as an educator. For example, one day driving down the road he said, “If you can dream it, we can accomplish it. You can make up excuses all day long, but the fact remains that if it is something you really want, we can make it happen.” But still…. I resisted.
I became immersed in my life as a wife, mother, and stepmother. We joined a church that I truly loved and looked forward to growing with. My husband was baptized, which made me so proud and I experienced a great sense of peace. Part of this time I was a stay at home mom, other times I worked part time. Finally, in a desire to be able to buy our own home, I went back to work fulltime in a Customer Service position. The job wasn’t something I loved, but it was an income.
In March of 2004 I found out the company was closing my division. Some of my co-workers were terrified, while some even wept. On the other hand, as I sat in the break room contemplating this change of events, a feeling of peace descended over me. Sitting right there, God spoke gently to me. “It is time.” And I knew it was.
As fate would have it, Guilford College was advertising one of their Information Sessions on the radio that same evening. I called and registered for the Session and haven’t looked back sense. Everything fell into place.
What made this time finally the right time? I believe a large part can be attributed to a theory by Abraham Maslow referred to as the Hierarchy of Needs. His theory in essence states that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that certain lower needs need to be satisfied before higher needs can be satisfied. He created a pyramid to display the order of these needs and theorized that each level must be fulfilled before a person can move to the next higher level. (1997, Gwynne)
As a very brief description, Maslow believed that the primary level referred to Psychological needs. This refers to basic needs such as air, water, food, sleep, sex, etc. I am blessed to have always had these very basic needs met.
Once those needs are met, we become concerned with fulfilling the level of Safety. These needs have to do with establishing stability and consistency in a chaotic world. During my teens and twenties, my life was like a roller coaster. There was usually some aspect that was unstable. After my second marriage, the needs for regularity and permanence were finally met.
Love and belongingness are next on the ladder. Maslow indicated that humans have a desire to belong to groups: clubs, work groups, religious groups, family, gangs, etc. As I entered into my thirties my family life, my faith, and my place in the community all seemed to fulfill this need.
After feelings of love and belongingness have been established, we tend to move on to Esteem needs. In this category a person seeks approval from others and recognition for accomplishments. This aspect was fulfilled for me both by the love, faith, and confidence in my family as well as accomplishments in the workplace. In addition, through the lessons learned in our new church home, I began to feel valuable to Christ as well. Suddenly, I saw a bigger picture for myself and realized I was created as a unique individual with various talents to serve some type of purpose.
According to Maslow, once all of these needs have been satisfied, we move on to the final category, which is Self Actualization. The need for self-actualization is "the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." (1997, Gwynne) People who have everything can maximize their potential.
In looking back over my life, I believe this is where I was when I found out my company was closing. It was the first time in my entire life that I felt completely safe, loved and a part of a large family, I felt appreciated for who I was and what my hopes and dreams were, and I felt confident in my relationship with Christ and in my faith. Reaching this place in my life finally provided me the self-confidence to make the commitment to further my education. I heard the call, “It is time, “ and I was able to answer positively and confidently.
Some elements of a story written by Diana Michener rang true with me. Ms. Michener is a photographer who had great difficulty believing in herself and trusting her instincts. She was always afraid of what people would say about her work. Finally, after a long and winding road, she learned to trust herself. In her story Michener says, “Look, I can dare to fall down, and look, I can get up, and look, I’m not too hurt to try again.” (1977) She knew life was not perfect and that she would have to take risks to accomplish her dreams. But, finally those risks were worth it. After all, without stepping out in faith, how will we ever grow?
As I have contemplated these events in my life, I came to realize the lessons I learned would also be valuable to me in the classroom. The same basic principle applies to elementary students as it did to me as an adult. For a child to learn, they must feel comfortable. A child that is hungry or overly tired is not going to learn, as they will be distracted. The first, very basic needs must be met before they are going to be open to the process of learning.
Next a child must feel safe and secure to be able to learn. They must know every day when they walk into their school that they are in a safe, accepting, and comfortable environment.
Just as important, a child must feel valuable in his or her classroom to be receptive to lessons. If a child worries they are an outcast or may be ridiculed, their time in school will be concentrating on this fear instead of what their teacher is saying. However, if they feel respected and as if they have something to contribute to the class, they are much more likely to become involved and participate.
The need of esteem should start at home, but I believe can be greatly promoted by the teacher as well. Student’s hard work should be praised and acknowledged. Obviously, there are negative elements that will have to be dealt with as well, but I think that if we as educators choose to focus on the positive it will go a long way to instilling a secure sense of self in our children which will carry over into every area of their lives.
As educators we have a responsibility to apply our lessons learned in life to our classroom. Through this particular decision making progress I learned that it is vital for the students in our classrooms to have all of their needs, both major and minor, met for them to be open and able to begin the process of learning and growing as individuals. The needs of children may be varied, but our commitment to identifying those needs and attempting to fulfill them should be unwavering.
Works Cited
Gwynne, Robert. (1997). University of Tennessee website. Maslow's
Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved 05/25/2005 from
[http://web.utk.edu/~gwynne/maslow.HTM]
Michener, Diana. (1977). Catching the Sun. In Ruddick, S. & Daniels, P.
(Eds). Working it Out (pp147-161). New York; Pantheon Books
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