As an addendum to my last post about the energy it takes to teach, I've been thinking about the joy and challenge I find in teaching.
In 2008, when I attended the NSTA's annual conference as a panelist (it's a long story, told here), I was asked why I wasn't doing more. Why I wasn't in graduate school, why I wasn't teaching or doing something more? And it wasn't one person, it was many people, in many settings.
My answer, at the time, was that I was raising my children. This reasoning was met with a "Oh, yes. That is good, but what will you do afterward? There is so much you could be doing!"
And now, three years later, and with my children growing older (next year I'll have a middle schooler) I find myself wondering 'what will be next?'
Currently, I find my challenges volunteering through my daughters' school, but as they outgrow the need to have me in their school, I wonder what I'll do next. Sure middle schools need volunteers, but god forbid my participation should warp from being about them to being only about me. And, yes, I have my wee business sewing, but is that enough?
I would hate, at the end of it all, to find I have sold myself short.