Life Coaching

A few months back, after I had been let go from my teaching position, before the school year was over, and while I was trying to determine whether I wanted to continue teaching at all, I had a 1/2 hour session with a life coach.
She was related to my chorus, had done a coaching session for the entire chorus and had sign ups for the time she was going to be in town the rest of the weekend.
I signed up.
My main goal was to see whether or not she thought I really wanted to be a teacher or not. I had struggled with it for a long time.
I have taught for 7 years. One year of kindergarten (lots of whining, crying, and interruptions) in Ohio, two years of 7th and 8th grade math in Florida (not that bad, good supportive co workers but did not like the 2 hour 15 minute block class schedule change the second year), two years of 4th grade in Pittsburgh (felt hopeless to do almost anything the entire two years, the kids were very frustrating, felt my planning was insufficient, but enjoyed reading to them and writing my master's paper on management) and then this most recent two years teaching 6th grade math here in Mountain View (first experience teaching english learners, almost enjoyable the first year, received lots of love from my kids and their parents, then let go the second year, the principal/district decided not to tenure me). After all of this time, I had never responded to the question, "How do you like teaching" the way I have seen others. No "wow, I love it, it is so satisfying" blah, blah, blah. My response was, "well, it's not terrible, there are parts I am fond of, I'm not that good at it" etc... etc...
One of my major insecurities was my lack of lesson planning. It seemed that it was the last thing I wanted to do and I felt that my students may have suffered somewhat as I taught by the seat of my pants. There was so much I was doing right though, mostly in my relationships with the kids. They knew that I loved them and cared for them and would help them patiently and without yelling. But I wasn't sure if I was good enough at my job, or if I liked it enough to continue. I also felt guilty for not doing what I believed was a good enough job as I looked at other teachers and asked them how much time they put into their job after work and on weekends. I always tried to do everything at school and bring nothing home. This would mean a few late evenings when I had given tests or needed to enter grades, but mostly I was done within 1/2 an hour to an hour from the end of the school day. (Teachers do compare themselves to each other frequently. There is also an overall sense that teaching is a martyrdom and the more hours you work the more you must care about your job and the kids.)
So, I wondered, what do I do now, look for other teaching jobs, go back to school, do something entirely different? I talked to the life coach about this dream I have to write children's books (or adult books, whichever.)
She asked me why?
Huh, I'd never thought about why. I loved to read, how it takes me away and puts me somewhere else, how my feelings can change, the way I think about the world or life can change, based on what I am reading. Books have a lot of power.
I want that power. Power to reach into a young person's life and give them something that will remain with them. But, maybe I just want to have something that will have my name on it forever, that someone might pick up in 50 years and enjoy long after I'm gone. (Not that I should be gone in 50 years! I would only be 84 and Fred says we will be living until I'm 88 at least.)
I have a heart for the middle school aged child. Many of my master's classes were on adolescent development. I remember my middle school years quite vividly. I hated them. I was so unsure, so concerned with what everybody around me thought of me and so sensitive. I loved reading Judy Blume, it amazed me that she seemed to have this way into the mind of an adolescent. She knew how I felt, what I was thinking.
I also love adult books too. How the characters can be so complex, how my heart can be moved or comforted as I read. I am very fond of Fannie Flag and how she depicts small town life and her characters.
It seems interesting that I have not really talked about the life coaching part at all. Maybe I should create the title after I write instead of before. So I'll put in some now!
The life coaching time helped me to think about why I wanted to write and to realize that even if there are parts I'm unsure about as a teacher, there are also things I really like about it and I can remain with it and instead of feeling guilty about my evenings when I'm not planning, I can do things to enrich myself, like learning to write.
That was when I thought I could get a job this year. I looked for most of the summer and have found nothing. Not easy to find something when 20,000 teachers are laid off in the state and there are tons of applications for each position.
Not having a job this year, I am devoting time to writing (Notice my wordy blog entries). I even got two books out of the library today to begin to find out how you go about writing a book!