My Old, Familiar Friend

Change.  Sometimes it's easy.  Sometimes it's not so easy.  I'd like to say that I'm always open to change.  That I thrive anytime change is involved.  That I willingly accept the opportunity to change.  The truth is, I'm not all that good at change.  What can I say?  I'm a creature of habit.  Case in point, I've gone to the same dentist my entire life.  You may be thinking, "Wow, when was the last time you had your teeth cleaned?"  Answer:  sometime within the last year.  Or, you may be saying to yourself, "What's the big deal?  So you've had the same dentist all of your life."  Did I mention that the dentist I write of happens to work on smiles in a small town 234 miles from where I currently live?  I like to justify it by saying that he's a perfectionist, and that's the type of person I want working on my teeth.  While that's true, the fact that it's easiest not to change is just as responsible for my 3-hour drive to get to a dentist appointment.

Last October I sat at my teacher's desk having made it through the worst part of the school year. (Quick tangent - The first quarter of first grade is always the worst.  First graders make so much progress during the year that it's a shock to see how helpless the incoming class is at the beginning of the next year.  I'm not kidding.  Go find any first grade teacher.  They'll agree with me.   And if they don't, they're lying.  Anyway...)  As I was logging into my email account, I was thinking about my job and the level of fulfillment it offered.  After teaching in Bellevue, NE for a little over four years, I was coming to the conclusion that I had a decent job that was going to allow me to lead a comfortable life.  However, I wasn't exactly thrilled by the possibility of waking up 20 years from now in order to teach the same grade, in the same classroom, in the same school.  Simply put, my job allowed me to use my ability to relate to kids to earn a paycheck, and that was about it.  Then an unexpected thing happened; I realized that my inbox contained a recent email from the human resources department of Omaha Public Schools (OPS).

You see, the previous school year I had mustered up the courage and applied to OPS in an attempt to reverse my life's trend of change resistance.  From the moment I began considering a career as a teacher, I had envisioned teaching in an urban setting with a classroom full of students who didn't look, talk, or act like me.  A number of schools in OPS fit the description of what I had deemed my ideal classroom, so I had applied.  The only problem with my attempt to initiate change had been the fact that I hadn't heard back from OPS.  They hadn't even bothered to let me know they'd received my application.  I didn't date much in high school or else I'd attempt to illustrate how being rejected by OPS left me feeling just like I did freshman year when I got shot down after asking out (Insert name of girl who looked a little like Katie Holmes).

As the months went by, I grew less and less optimistic about a change in career path.  Slowly, I was resigned to the thought that maybe I was just another apple in the gigantic OPS orchard of teaching applicants, and perhaps I wasn't going to get picked.

In all honesty, I felt a slight sense of relief.  Not hearing back from OPS would allow me to avoid change for at least a little while longer, and I'd be able to go back to my comfortable existence.  At this point, I was growing ever closer to letting go of my dream to teach in an urban school.

Back to October.  As I sat at my desk reading the email from OPS, I was pleasantly surprised by the second line.  It read:

"Are you interested in remaining in the pool of candidates considered for employment second semester or the 10-11 school year?"

I'd like to say that I immediately replied with an ecstatic "Yes!"  Instead, I sat on the email for seven weeks without sending a response.  SEVEN WEEKS!!  Here it was, I had heard from a school district that could offer me a chance to achieve my dream, and I wasn't sure what I should say.  In my head I knew what I should do.  I should have sent back a reply as soon as I was finished reading the email.  In reality, I was struggling with the idea that I would be faced with my old, familiar friend, change.  A reply saying that I would like to be in the "pool of candidates considered for employment" with OPS would potentially be opening up the floodgates for change to come rushing into my life.

The seven weeks I took to respond were spent praying for direction (even though direction was staring me right in the face), talking to my fiance (she couldn't understand my hesitation), and generally trying to figure out why I was taking so long to make a decision that was clearly very simple.

At the end of the seven weeks, I had come to the conclusion that I knew was the right one all along.  I responded with an apology for my slow response (an understatement) and said that I would in fact like to remain "in the pool" (If you're like me, upon hearing the word pool, you automatically think of a swimming pool).

A month after I replied to the first email, I received another email asking me to go in for a formal interview.  I did so in February of this year, and then spent four months waiting to hear if I was going to be called out of "the pool" and offered a job (Fortunately for me, I wasn't actually in a swimming pool.  I'd hate to think how wrinkled my skin would have gotten if I had been waiting in one all of that time).

Anyway, I eventually was offered a job teaching second grade at Franklin Elementary, a school exactly like the one I've had pictured in my head since the day I first considered becoming a teacher.  Unlike when I received the first email from OPS, I didn't take seven weeks to accept the job offer.  The job was offered on a Thursday, and I called Human Resources on the following Monday to let them know that I would in fact take the position.

So that brings us to the present.  It's the eve of the new school year.  Since making the commitment to teach at Franklin, my life's been turned over to the uncomfortable force of change.  I left a school, colleagues, and students that I was comfortable with and stepped out into the unknown.  Somewhere along the way, I realized that, in order to live out my dream, I was going to have to face change head on.  I was going to have to embrace change and everything that it would bring with it into my life.

Here I sit with a steady ball of anxiety building in the pit of my stomach.  I don't know exactly how this next year is going to play out.  I can't say that I know for sure that I'm going to love teaching at Franklin.  However, I do know one thing.  I won't be spending this year feeling disappointed with myself for letting a dream slowly slip away.

And who do I have to thank for that?  Change.

Who knows?  If this school year goes well, maybe I'll have to listen to change a little more often.  And maybe, just maybe, I'll let it talk me into finding a new dentist.