My mom was a teacher and that life made no sense to
me. It looked like a horrible, stressful job with long hours. My dad, on the
other hand, went to work at 8:45, came back home at about noon for lunch and a
nap, went back to work some time after 1:00, and came back home at 5:00. That
looked pretty good. It made sense. I liked science, I liked Dad, and I liked
his life, so I thought I would follow his career path. After graduating from
high school, I went to UBC to become an engineer like my dad.
The problem was that in each of the three years I was
at UBC, I skittered along the edge of failing. My first year I was
pre-engineering, but I realized I hated physics, so engineering was out. My
second year, I was pre-pharmacy, but I realized I hated chemistry, so pharmacy
was out. I turned to the last of the Big 3 sciences, biology (I had never taken
a biology course before), so in my third year, I was pre-marine biology, but I
realized I hated biology, so marine biology was out. Plus, I failed three of my
main courses and UBC, wisely, kicked me out.
I took a year off to work and see if I could come up
with a better career plan because engineering and sciences were not going to
work for me. I worked at restaurants, I was an office temp, and I worked at a
fish hatchery in Qualicum.
This last job was an eye-opening experience to me. It
was outdoors, it was physical, it was rural, and it was totally isolated. I
lived at the fish hatchery and when the other workers went home, I was alone,
and apart from a worker who lived not too far, the second nearest neighbour was
about 20 minutes up a tough logging road. The whole experience was a different
situation from being a university student living at home in suburban Vancouver.
Still, I really enjoyed my time at the Little Qualicum Hatchery. I proved to
myself I could work and survive in a totally different context than my usual
situation. I made friends, I learned how to cook, and I learned how to occupy
the long, dark, solitary hours when I was not working.
After a year of work, I went back to school, this
time to Douglas College to explore my options. Previously, at UBC, the courses
I found more interesting were my Arts courses, so at Douglas, I pursued the
beginning of an Arts degree. I enjoyed Douglas, I enjoyed my classes, and I did
well. I made friends and I had a way better school-work-social life balance
than when I was at UBC. For me, UBC was not a good fit. Because I was commuting
to UBC from Coquitlam for over an hour, I did not hang around the campus or
make many friends. Plus, science courses at UBC were held in huge lecture halls
and were highly competitive. Add to this my weekend late night restaurant job
and morning classes after a long commute, and I was exhausted for three years.
Douglas, which was close, casual, and more seminar-based than lab or
lecture-based, was a better fit for me.
After a year, I transferred to Simon Fraser
University to finish my degree in English Literature. I still did not have a
solid career plan, but I thought I would get a degree and then see what would
happen. In my last semester, I wanted to take the Children’s Literature course,
but it was full, so I met with the registrar to see if she could get me in. She
told me that the Children’s Lit class in the English department was always full
but I could take the Education department’s Children’s Lit class instead.
Education, teachers. I loved my mom, but I had no interest in taking a teachers
course. The registrar must have seen the look of distaste on my face and
she said, “Look, that Education class is on right now. Go check it out and if
you like it, I can get you in.” Reluctantly, I went down to the Education
department.
I got to the room, and the class was already in
progress. There were two instructors, a man and a woman, and the class of about
40 students had 37 women in it. I sneaked in and sat at the back. The male
instructor was reading a picture book, a folktale. He was a really good reader.
The class, including myself, listened, transfixed.
After he finished, we all just kind of sat there,
stunned. He chuckled and brought us out of our reverie. “What did you think of
that? How did that make you feel?” he prompted, so we would talk to the people
around us. I talked to the woman beside me who was a practicing teacher, and I
admitted I was not really enrolled in the class yet. That was okay with her and
we had a nice talk about the book. The whole class was like that. Nice people,
interesting material, great discussions, and some of the discussions were
actually about the material.
After the class ended, I went to the registrar and signed up for the Children’s Literature class in the Education department. I thanked her for explaining the Education class option. She kind of smiled and said, “I thought that would work for you.” I probably should have thanked her more seeing as she changed my life.
Random circumstances and the registrar tag-teamed to determine my fate. I was going to become my mom, not my dad.
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| receiving my Teaching Diploma |
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