Teacher Tales #9 – The call to teach, the teaching family and a hero’s journey: Michelle – former student, new teacher and “connectedness” researcher

In this episode, I talk to Michelle, another former student who answered the calling to become a teacher. Born and raised in a teacher family, Michelle decided early on that she did NOT want to become a teacher. So, she pursued a PhD in psychology. However, a life crisis and a series of unfortunate events led her to finally answer the call to teach that had always been there, but that she had decided as a child to refuse to hear. Like myself and many other teachers I have known, Michelle was now following her true path on the “hero’s journey”, as Joseph Campbell called it…an adventure in teaching that would forever change her and her mission in life. Her first year teaching was at a Title 1 school and in a pandemic, yet, she found herself fully stepping into her calling for something “greater than” herself. She tells us that she decided to invest in children and their education through relationship and connectedness. She didn’t give in, but rather, gave back as much as she could, despite lack of funding, parental support and a landmine of social-emotional-psychological challenges that her students were facing each day. Michelle says that she took for granted how much teachers should be recognized and celebrated for what they do…but not anymore…and she hopes that others will come to realize how precious teachers really are to our culture, our community and our connectedness to each other!