Hello World!

 Repost from my old, now deleted, blog from July 12, 2021. While a lot of my life has changed since this was originally posted, I felt it was important to not lose my original thoughts and original purpose.

I have been putting this off for years. Okay, I'm not sure about years, but at least a year. Everything I've read about a first post just says to write one. Despite not having done much writing in the past few years, I have always said I'm a better writer than speaker, so why do I spend all my time talking? 

In teaching, there's so little room for opinions or my other interests. Teaching makes up a small portion of my interests, but the majority of my life. It's making my life feel smaller, instead of bigger like the variety of my interests. As a teacher, I'm trying to expose my students to life outside the classroom and expand their world. However, each day of teaching has made my world and myself feel smaller. Now, this isn't a super peppy first post, and it is making the looming start to the school year more menacing. However, I hope that if you find yourself unsure of your path, you know you're not alone. Whether pandemic life has you unsure if you really want what you had prepandemic, your work life hasn't brought you what you wanted, you wonder if you are in the right place, or you're questioning the career you went to college for, I'm there, too. Whatever this is, I guess I'll be working through it on the internet.

My hope is to find my passions again. In the end, will teaching feel like a passion again? I hope so. I care deeply about each student feeling safe and worthy in my classroom. I work hard to create a team atmosphere where students feel comfortable to contribute and knows they have valued ideas. I start each year discussing how everyone comes into a science room with different background knowledge and that's okay. Everyone is good at something, and everyone needs help sometimes.

I know I am a good teacher, despite what my self talk is at times. However, is teaching really good for me? We'll see. As I'm delving into other passions on here, I'm hoping to regain some much needed balance and mental clarity.

This whole post has felt random and wishy-washy, but I am hoping that someday it will have been the start to something. Here we go!

-WAH