{This week’s Spotlight on the Crew article is brought to you from Christina, at i have been blessed. }
When I was about five years old, my Mom wrote a song for me:
I might be a Kindergarten Teacher
Or work in a bank like my Aunt Joan
Or work in an office like Mommy
Or have ten kids and stay at home.
I might be a doctor
Or maybe a baby’s nurse
But whatever I do, Wherever I go
I’ll always put my God first.
Probably from the first time I heard the song, I knew I wanted to be a teacher, and throughout my formative years, and on into my teen years, I never really wavered from that thought. So, in high school, I focused my electives on Education, and when I entered college, first at the Community College level, and then at the University of South Florida (at the time, third in the nation for their Education program), I entered with my focus on an Elementary Education degree.
I did my time and my classes. And then I got to my internship. My first internships were great. I learned a lot and I loved being in charge of the class for a couple hours at a time. Then came my final internship. I was assigned a fourth grade class in inner city Tampa, in the ghetto. And it was a neighborhood school. I cried on my first day when I saw the bullet holes in the library windows. I had kids arrested out of my class. I lost kids to “the system” because their parents got arrested for drugs or prostitution the night before. I had kids sleep in my class because they listened to their parents fight or party or because someone else was sleeping in their bed. And my heart broke over and over again. I realized I didn’t have the capacity in me to not become too emotionally involved.
I took a job working in an office (like Mommy) …. Where I eventually met my husband. When it was time for my oldest baby to go to school, the thoughts of the sending my son to school mixed with all I knew about the government controlled beaurocracy, I wasn’t anxious to send my son there. Thanks to some friends that were also homeschooling, I felt like that was the best choice for me as well.
I am sure when my mom wrote that song, the line about having ten kids and staying at home was meant as the punch line. The “way out there” one that wouldn’t come true. Surely, I would pick one of the other fine choices … but to my amazement, it’s the one that is most similar to the truth. Six kids later, and I am blessed to stay home. So four years of college to be a teacher and I still teach, I just get to teach the kids I like!!!!
I have been blessed.
Christina is the wife to the husband that God chose just for her and the mother of six wonderful children. They have been blessed to be able to homeschool for over seven years now. They use a real life method of schooling combined with Unit Study type curriculum. They have a family farm that keeps them busy and helps provide for their family. You can find Christina blogging about their lives at i have been blessed.