Why I’m Not Leaving Education to Become a Blogger

I see it all the time.  Ad after ad advertising blogging as an escape from the chain of the 9 to 5 job.  It is amazing to me how many of these ads refer to teaching as the job they wanted to flee. How could they teach when they really didn’t enjoy it?  It is hard for me to imagine.  Now, I have been writing since I was a young girl.  Stacks of journals holding my deepest secrets are proof it is truly a passion of mine, but one thing I have never wanted to escape is teaching.  The days spent learning with teenagers is not a hindrance but an inspiration to me, something I sincerely hope to do for the rest of my life, in one capacity or another.

Did I want to be a teacher growing up?  No.  I wanted to sing, act, and practice medicine but not teach or write for that matter.  I did love kids though.  I loved babysitting, mentoring, working with kids at my church, and even took an opportunity to work with inner-city youth the summer before I graduated from high school.  For no particular reason other than God’s prompting, the second semester of college, I switched my major from pre-med to English education and never looked back.

As an undergrad, I was amazed at my classmates who did not enjoy the teaching portion of our course work.  Sure, I felt overwhelmed much of the time, but I found the experience inspiring, even exhilarating.  Despite the challenges of student behavior, learning challenges, and devastating home situations, I have never finished a year without an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for the opportunity to walk alongside a throng of diverse, beautiful teens.  Exhaustion?  Yes, I have felt that.  But after 21 years, I still step into the classroom with a sense of great anticipation. 

I write because I love it.  Maya Angelou’s quote that “writers write” holds true.  But I don’t write to escape my career.  In my case, “teacher’s teach” just as much as “writers write”. My career is a gift from God, the inspiration from which my writing springs forth.  These image-bearing individuals have been God’s lens into this beautiful fallen world He is redeeming. Do I want to write more?  Yes.  But my daily interactions with these unique individuals are the breath in my lungs.  To give that up would be to pull the plug on a sea of muse I get to swim in every day.

The result?  I write when I finish grading, while my kids are in music lessons, or for an hour before church.  And often my job or duties as a wife and mother prevent me from crafting that piece I’ve been ruminating on right away, but that is okay.  God knows the plans he has for me, namely that he made me to be a teacher and a writer and will make a way for me to be both in his time, not mine.