The Future's So Bright

[geminigirl]

Somewhere in my work with peer educators or in doing educational groups as a social worker, I fell in love with teaching. I never really wanted to be in a classroom though-it's just not the place where I see myself being happy. But I love teaching, and I love the experience. I kind of gave up my career to get married and start a family though, and never really had a chance to expand on the things I loved about it. We'd talked about homeschooling, and I was looking forward to it, and then we fell into an educational opportunity for Naomi that was really too good to pass up, so she's been enrolled in a public magnet school and I'm not getting the chance to homeschool. And since I'm not homeschooling, there's also time...lots of it.

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do-Miriam will be in school full time soon, I anticipate. And I don't know what I want to do.

At the same time, I've fallen in love with Girl Scouts-so much so that when our current leader decided she needed to step down, she asked if I would step into the role. And it's been fun so far. It lets me do the things that appeal from the teaching side while still giving me the non-classroom experience, and without overwhelming me so much that I don't have the time and energy to give to my family and other responsibilties.

I'd love to find a way to do something similar, but get paid for it. To teach a little, to plan a little, but not in a classroom, not in a restrictive way. I don't know what I want anymore.

Comments

[erinmdmd.livejournal.com]

The thing that comes to mind is to offer homeschool classes. One of the challenges in homeschooling with littles is that as the oldest kids get older and you are still bogged down with younger children, you wish you had time and energy to do projects and messy stuff but its almost never worth it (messy! toddlers want to muck around too!).

There are a few HS classes offered here by individuals- at a high school level, someone teaches Latin, another teaches civics. Our history co-op is a chance to pour energy into some cool projects- Raina's class made a covered wagon model and a pueblo village, for example. Raina's once/week writing class is nice too, and someone does a theater/drama class two days a week. That doesn't touch on the fact that we have homeschool classes at community centers (just a couple) and parents/kids come for a class or two. Mostly they come for dance or cooking class or something less academic, but offerings are based on requests and availability of teachers (mostly not HSers).

I find tutoring to be rewarding at times. Its not classroom teaching, but it can be creative, especially since the ways I know how to do whatever topic is being covered is rarely exactly how the student is learning it- I find creativity in how to show that all roads to the answer are one and the same. It certainly can be profitable (I charge $50/hour, but in actuality do it as a favor or trade for childcare instead, but thats a choice!).

[bicrim.livejournal.com]

One of the things I love about social work is how flexible it is. You could probably get a position doing psychoeducational stuff pretty easily, which would be teaching, and also less intense and stressful than being someone's therapist, which I found to be too much when my kids were still little. Some prevention type jobs do a lot of either ATOD or sex education, which you would be great at.

[geminigirl]

I worked in prevetion education-that's what I did for years and years. The general state of agencies doing prevention educaton around here is chaotic-far too chaotic for me (did some work with them about 10 years ago, and the same people are still involved.)

[veryfineredwine.livejournal.com]

How about play therapy? There's a program here, the Primary Project, in which teachers identify kids who are socially struggling, and the kids work in small groups with a therapist for a short time to build social skills and improve mental health. I don't know if it runs everywhere, but it's available in the city and some suburban school districts here.

[vix.livejournal.com]

My favourite aunt worked for years in the administrative side of the Girl Scouts. The division she worked for was dysfunctional, but I think she did really love the work. Made me proud to have been a Scout even though I completely half-assed it the whole time!

[geminigirl]

It's totally dysfunctional here, too. Took me months and months to get Naomi placed into a troop and I know people who have been waiting over a year.