So I’m Gonna Be a Teacher…

In one year, I will have paid off my undergrad student loans. For the past 10 years, I allocated $289/month on an average annual salary of $25,000 doing what I loved. I made it work by transferring $1,000 every few months into a separate bank account solely for auto payments for my student loans. Out of sight and out of mind made the payments less overwhelming and allowed me to more practically budget my living expenses.

Soon, I will be entering into student debt once again as I’ve made the decision to pursue my Master’s degree–something I never intended on pursuing. But my career path has taken me a different way. Perhaps one day I’ll circle around again to my zoological roots, maybe open that dream animal sanctuary for animals and people with disabilities. The future is unwritten. And though I’m working toward a future with my decision to pursue my Master’s, I’m also choosing to live wholly in the present.

I’ve never been happier in my career choice than I am now teaching children. It was a fluke occurrence that saw me becoming a temporary substitute teacher in Seattle which led me to fall in love with a classroom of 8 students with special needs–and more specifically, one little boy for whom I would become his 1:1 throughout the remainder of the school year. Each day was a challenge, and the long-awaited rewards came in small glimpses: his little voice reminding himself, “Mistakes are just your brain growing”; independently taking himself to the calm corner to regulate his emotions; asking me to count to 10 so he could calm down.

Now in New York, I’ve been working with low income and at-risk youth in an overflowing integrated pre-k classroom of 24 students, at least half of which require individual instruction. I am EXHAUSTED at the end of the work day, but I still love going to work every day, just like I did at my school in Seattle. I find the patience to kneel down to a child wandering the room because he doesn’t understand how to find an empty seat at a table and involve him in the explanation. I find great joy in taking a child’s hand who has come to me crying because a friend wouldn’t share and walking over to that student to “solve the problem” together. Too often at-risk students are yelled at, seen as problem childs or end up slipping under the radar because they are too quiet or scared to voice their needs, perhaps not even understanding what it is they are seeking.

Maybe it’s because in my own life I have misunderstood my own emotions, succumbing to societal pressures and stigma. Maybe it’s because in coming to fully understand and accept and love myself, I can see these children for who they really are. Maybe it’s as simple as figuring out that this is where I’m meant to be. Maybe.

Whatever the reason, whatever the path, whatever the late nights and long hours ahead, I am elated to be following a new dream pursuing my Master’s in Teaching.

How “Calm Corner” Spaces Build Social / Emotional Skills for Children

We’ve all got that comfy spot we throw ourselves into when we need to relax, be it lounging on the sofa, sprawling out on the bed, or kicking back in a patio chair. Adults and children need breaks to decompress every now and then.

While working at a preschool for children with special needs, the teachers and I created a cozy space for regulating emotion–aptly dubbed the “calm corner.”

Read about how calm corners in the classroom and home setting are pivotal to child social/emotional development in my most recent article for my school’s website.

P.S. OMG I’ve written so many articles about emotions.

How Animals Help Children Learn

The first decade of my adult life–i.e. the first decade of my career–I dedicated to animals. I of course dabbled in acting and writing, often merging the three, but I also dabbled in education as a private tutor and environmental educator.

To kick off the second decade of my adulthood, I switched careers, focusing full-time on education (and of course still dabbling with acting and writing and trying to teach kids about animals every chance that I get).

Yes, those are all drawings from my students who still can’t stop talking about my guinea pig even though she visited them months ago.

My end goal is still to open a sanctuary for animals with disabilities helping people with disabilities. I’ve seen first-hand in and out of the classroom how children connect with animals and come out of their shell.

Read about my experiences with animal therapy for children with disabilities in this article on my school’s website.

Roughing it in the Bahamas

When people hear that I lived in the Bahamas for a year, their idea of the life I led there is drastically different from the reality. True, the island chain’s turquoise blue water, white sand beaches, and towering cliffscapes are not exaggerated on postcards and brochures. It really is an island paradise, and I really did have those at my fingertips.

But my days were not spent sprawled in a lounge chair catching a tan, sipping fruity drinks, and staring out at a blue expanse of nothingness. I caught a tan while scrubbing salt water and lemon juice into dirty laundry, while painting shutters in a bikini in stifling 100 degree heat–with no A/C to escape to. I drank warm water that I’d siphoned into bottles from a freshwater jug. And more often than not, my view of the ocean was interrupted by “the bush”–an impassable tangle of green and brown roots and leaves that traversed the remote island I called home.

About half the time I lived in the Bahamas, I did not have electricity. For all but the first month, I did not have running water. Part of this was due to setting up camp in the shell of an abandoned property while slowly–ever so slowly–renovating the house. Part of this was due to the ensuing aftermath of Hurricane Joaquin.

Every morning, I woke at 6 AM and cooked oatmeal over a portable stovetop. I poured salt water over my toothbrush to wet it before brushing my teeth. Then, I put on a mismatching bathing suit top and bottom before heading outside to the well on property. No freshwater source existed on the narrow island, so the well tapping into the water table only produced easy access to salt water. I tied a rope around glass bottles I’d plucked from the shoreline, long ago washed up from the tide. Dangling the bottle down into the 10 foot well, I hauled up five bottles of water, a gallon each, to suffice for the day: one for dishes, two for the toilets, one for laundry, and one for showering.

Next, I plugged up the kitchen sink and filled it with one of the bottles’ contents. All of the dishes from the day would soak in here throughout the day. Before bed, I would scrub them then set them out to dry, streaks of salt residue the next day affirming their cleanliness.

By now, it was nearing 8 AM. I would decide my projects for the day. This varied every day. Some days I scavenged and hauled 20-pound rocks from the surrounding bush and aligned them on the property, the humble beginnings of a garden bed forming atop the hard coral rock surface beneath my feet. Other days I drove 40 minutes into town on the one road, potholed, no-lined highway to get groceries: $7 for a head of moldy cauliflower that took a week to get from the U.S. to Nassau to Long Island, Bahamas; $10 for a pack of 5 tampons. On Saturdays, though, I went to the Farmer’s Market for local produce and socializing with the women selling me fresh mangos, guava, breadfruit, and arugula.

When it wasn’t laundry day, I set to work painting the entire exterior of the two small buildings on the property–once a command center for the adjacent unkept runway, then a nightclub, then a home. Eventually, I would paint the inside.

Some days I climbed down into the well to scoop out the Cuban tree frog tadpoles and drop them in the water’s edge at the end of the runway. I’d return to scrape the muck out of the old well, a futile attempt to purify thecontaminated salt water.

By noon, I had made a lunch of potatoes–Greek lemon or mustard potatoes–or lentils. Then I headed back outside for more laborious tasks. The heat of the day peeked at 3 PM, an unbearable time to be outside, skin baking and burning even in rare, coveted shady spots on the land. Indoors, I wrote for hours, taking breaks to read a book, play cards, or glue seashells together to make shell creatureswhich I would eventually bequeath to my Bahamian friends as I said my farewells a year later.

At 5 PM, I’d explore a new nook of the island, turning down unmarked after unmarked dirt road to find yet another vacant beach on this 80-mile long island of 3,000 inhabitants. I collected sea glass and sea shells, dead coral and bones. I encountered dozens of adult sea turtles while snorkeling in a cove; came face-to-face with a bull shark in open water.

At 8 PM I made dinner. Before the sun fell below the horizon at 8:30 PM, I was asleep–awaken throughout the night by the loud incessant croaking of Cuban tree frogs that had long ago matured from the well.

In the wake of Hurricane Joaquin, I would understand what it meant to be white and privileged showcased by my ability to choose to live this way, and the choice to return to “normal.’

7 Life Lessons I’ve Learned from Preschoolers with Special Needs

I’ve been working with children at a special education preschool for the past 4 months, and the students have taught me a thing or two about being an adult and, quite simply, a human being.

 1. Have your own feelings, and let others have theirs.

Instead of describing someone as “overly sensitive,” use the words “more sensitive.” Instead of saying, “You made me sad…,” say, “I felt sad when…” Society has normalized only certain degrees of feelings, boxing us into a limited array of “appropriate” emotions, when, in fact, emotions have been and always will be individualized.

 2. Communication is key.

Facilitating peer-to-peer repair is an important aspect of teaching special education. In life, you are going to have thoughts and feelings that you cannot control. It is important to communicate them to those around you instead of bottling them up. You can explain what happened to make you feel or think that way and in return, you’ll probably receive some empathy from a listening ear. Most everyone has empathy on some basic level, and so much of our negative thoughts and emotions are the result of accidents or misunderstanding.

3. Behavior tells a story.

Sometimes, our mouths get dammed up and we don’t know how to put into words what we’re feeling. Body language and reactions are communications in their own right. For children with special needs who lack the language to express what they want or what they’re feeling, we teachers strengthen their trust by reading, understanding, and appropriately–compassionately–responding to their non-verbal cues.

 4. Be an active listener.

Though many of my kiddos struggle with making eye contact, they still know whether or not they are being heard based on eye contact from others and general interest in their words. Because the children are building their language skills, we routinely model sentence structures for them, but only after giving them a chance to tell us the story in their own words. We give them our full attention, concentrating and then responding directly to what they just said. This not only improves upon their communication skills, but also gives them a sense of value.

 5. Goals are best accomplished one step at a time.

Scaffolding is an important aspect of special education teaching which involves breaking down lessons into smaller, more manageable steps. Goals should be set high but they should also be attainable. Learning–whether in school or in life–is best achieved when we slow down, take a step back, and look things over an extra time or two.

 6. You have more patience than you realize.

Special education requires an incredible amount of patience, especially in a room full of energetic preschoolers. I honestly did not know I had this much of an inner calm inside me. My patience is tried literally every thirty seconds throughout the six-hour school day, but I very rarely ever find it stretching too thin. (Though I do want to fall asleep by 8 PM. 🙂 ) This is hugely based on the effort I have put into building relationships with these mini humans, the time I have taken to understand them, with or without their words. Moments that seem trying are usually just a misunderstood child trying to be understood.

 7. Everyone deserves to be loved.

When I worked in the animal world, I fell in love with patients that struggled the most–a three-legged sheep, turtles missing flippers–and clients that perhaps carried a lot of baggage–crotchety old men, socially awkward folks. I’ve always been drawn to those who are misunderstood (#pitbullsarethegreatest), and children with special needs too often are. It’s such a privilege to be working at a school where cochlear implants and hearing aids are the norm, where listening and equipment checks are part of our morning routine. Even when a student is screaming in my face or punching my arm, I still have an overwhelming desire to help them learn how to process their feelings–and I remind them that it’s okay to have these feelings, because that’s what makes them who they are. They’re not different; they’re all just tiny humans finding their way in the world, and needing a little extra help along the path.

What are some life lessons you’ve learned from children? Share in the comments below!

Dear Joaquin

It’s been three years but I still think of you.

I remember you before, I remember you during, and I remember you after.

You don’t invade my dreams like you used to, robbing me of sleep each time I tried to close my eyes. You don’t make me nauseous like you did when I first met you. You don’t make me sob, but you can still make me cry.

I will never forget you, and I don’t want to forget you. But for far too long, you ran my life. You defined my fears and insecurities, my paranoia and my heartache. You were the catalyst to so many other terrible experiences, but in you I’ve also found a beacon of strength.

You destroyed everything in your path, and you threatened to destroy me. I am not impenetrable. But I am resilient, don’t you see?

As the homes were rebuilt, so did I rebuild the very bones that you had rattled for 36 hours straight and countless days and nights after.

As I sat drying and tossing and searching for the things you tried to take from me, I remembered that you took so much more from so many who had less.

As I listened to others share their stories, I realized I wasn’t alone, and together we rose from your ruins.

It’s been three years and I still think of you, but it’s different now. Good different.

RIP Hurricane Joaquin. You helped shape the woman I am today, and for that, I’m forever grateful.

 

Oct 14, 2015 (2 weeks later):

Hurricane Joaquin was terrifying in its before, during, and after. I am safe but my emotions are raw; the island is devastated. I have choked back vomit and tears more times than I can tally. You never expect when you take off on a dream to travel the world that the place you start to call your home can be ravaged so severely, so unforgivingly by Mother Nature. You never expect that you will get caught up 20 miles from the eye of a disaster that will live in history and meteorology as one of the most unexpected, unpredictable, perfect storms to date. You never expect to face so much fear and sadness, to flee your house, to hear survival stories of neighbors breaking through rooftops, clinging to trees, Duct taping identification to their bodies, crouching in a closet with two large dogs for 36 hours straight. Two days of 130, 145 mph winds–gusts clocked at 200. Two days of relentless storm surges. And an apocalyptic aftermath that leaves you empty.

I am writing this at a temporary communication tower with a crawling internet speed as the main tower was taken out by the storm, along with over 600 telephone poles in a 40-mile stretch. It took 1 hr to drive to it. Electricity is just being restored to parts of the island.

In my transient 6 months on Long Island, Bahamas, I’ve learned that what makes this place paradise more than its beautiful landscapes is its beautiful people. This is a resilient community. I don’t know how and I don’t know when but somehow, sometime, life will go back to normal.

If you would like to help, please, please do so. People have lost everything, including their source of income to rebuild. Contact SEACOR in Ft. Lauderdale to send food, water, building supplies, clothing, bedding, feminine hygiene products, and infant needs. Contact NEMA in Nassau, Bahamas for monetary donations. Private planes can transport supplies to the Stella Maris airport which has opened up here on Long Island.

Whether you pray, meditate, or simply ponder, please keep this island at the forefront of your mind now and in the indefinite future.

Oct 21, 2015 (3 weeks later): 

In the wake of Hurricane Joaquin, the support I’ve received from family and friends in every pocket of the globe has been humbling. I am a firm believer that no friendship is ever too small. In times like these, we lean on each other. I’m doing a lot of leaning. Please, people, if you ever need help, consider it a moment of strength, not weakness, when you choose to lean on someone. We are all we’ve got.

The Art of Listening: Stop Telling, Start Hearing, Give Feeling

My best friend knows me about as well as I know myself, and he is the one person in the world that I have told everything to. Part of the beauty of our friendship is that I don’t feel that I have to tell him everything but I know that I can and want to tell him everything.

He is my confidante, advisor, soulmate, comedian, and one hell of a listener.

Recently, I asked him to just listen, to offer no advice or opinions because even though I respect and value whatever he has to say, and I know it always comes out of love and care for me, and I know he is always right (dang nabbit)… At that moment, I just needed someone to hear how I was feeling. I needed empathy, not pragmatics.

And I am tired of people telling me how to feel.

Do you know how hard it is to shut your mouth and just listen? Humans have a natural instinct to try to fix things, even if it isn’t their own thing to fix. Vulnerability makes so many people uncomfortable that when they see someone else opening up their bag of emotions, they instinctively reach to clasp it shut.

No one wants to pick up the pieces of brokenness, so humans work to make things right and whole again. We hurt to see others hurting, but we’re also scared shitless of it. I know. I’ve been there.

My best friend listened to me, my big mouth, and my bigger heart for an hour. He didn’t set the phone down away from him; I could hear him breathing. He said about two sentences, neither of which was advice. One was a short but welcome opinion. The other was a deep sigh followed with two of the most common words in the English language, a phrase that we dole out like chocolate in a candy store, words that are simultaneously overused and underused because often times we’re too self-righteous, egotistical, or bull-headed to use them.

He told me, “I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t pitying me and he wasn’t trying to fix me. He wasn’t telling me that I would be okay, that it would get better–things I already knew to be true. He was just feeling my feelings, embracing my vulnerability. That simple act, listening and empathizing, acknowledged the courage it took for me to slice open my chest and lay my beating heart on the table.

Sometimes, when I bare myself in this way, the flutter of ensuing commentary is like a meat pounder, and my heart is its victim. Sometimes, those remarks are what I need to hear. Usually, they’re what I should hear.

But sometimes, I already feel so hurt and alone that bringing out the meat pounder only grinds me to a pulp. Words are so very powerful. Sometimes, too many of them can be so overbearing that their target looms smaller.

While speech has a time and place and always a freedom and right, sometimes listening is the greatest act of love we can offer someone who is in pain.

I asked my friend if he was dying to give me advice. He told me no. He said one day, when I’m ready, I’ll hear it. But that wasn’t today. Today he was just sorry.

Rocky: The Paraplegic Sheep Who Taught Me Perseverance

Meet Rocky, the paraplegic sheep with an impressive underbite. Rocky was born with paralyzed back legs. Due to this birth defect, his parents decided to send him to the slaughterhouse. But the sanctuary I worked at in Texas intercepted him. Rocky spent his short few years of life frolicking in the pasture, where he taught himself to walk by balancing on his back legs. He was by and far my favorite patient.

This sheep taught me so much about perseverance. It was in Texas that I contracted then undiagnosed Lyme disease. When I became too weak and painful to carry food buckets through the pasture, I still snuck away every day to spend time with him.

It’s on days like these, when my joint flare-ups have me struggling to open jars, that I remember all that this innocent, woolly soul taught me. If a paralyzed sheep can learn to walk, then there is nothing in life we can’t achieve.

All this time I thought I was taking care of Rocky, but really he was taking care of me.