Contemplating Photography

I can't tell if I'm sick of school or if my heart just isn't in to teaching anymore. I have thought about being a photograher before but it just didn't seem as stable as being a teacher, plus being a teacher is what I have wanted to do since I was in about first grade. Lately though I just am not feeling it. I'm not having fun in my classes and I have had two, fairly shitty, classroom experiences. I only have one more until my student teaching. We were told that our classroom experiences would tell us if this is what we were meant to do. Well...they haven't. I'm holding out for my last field experience before student teaching, which really is the semester before my student teaching so at that point I should just finish my degree.

My first experience I was an elementary education major. It was myself and one other girl. We got a group of 8 kids I believe. We took them to the library and taught them weather a couple days a week for a few weeks. Needless to say that experience didn't help at all. First of all there was no one there to say ok this is good but maybe you should try this. Second of all it was an hour a day so by the time we picked the kids up, got them to the library, and had to have them back to their classrooms, we didn't have much time to do anything... nor were we really prepared having nothing to go off of or having anyone to give us pointers. Finally, my partner had previously been a meterology major so she knew a ton about weather, I did not. So most of the time it was her talking and me just being an assistant.

My second experience was this past semester. I was placed in an 8th grade geography class. I was there for an hour a day for I believe twenty days. I did nothing & I mean nothing. But the teacher rarely did anything. The class period consisted of: Morning annoucements (it was first period), two students each day did a small little presentation of a recent event, they would correct their study guide/worksheet things (this is where I came in...I would go to the front of the room & read the answers while they corrected their own sheets), then they would get a notes sheet (they were typed out for them & would go around the room and each read a line until the notes were finished), they would then get a new worksheet/study guide, read the section/chapter by themselves, and do the sheet. By then it was the end of the hour and time for me to leave.

Yep...that's how my teaching experience has gone so far. Plus, I do terrible when people are critiquing me. Even if I can do something perfectly by myself, the second you put someone there to watch me do it & I suck. I am just thinking the whole time about how much they think I suck and how I'm not doing well.

I couldn't even tell you why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place and hate everytime that question is asked in a class. I like history, didn't really mind school, & have/had no idea what else to do. All of this should be telling me that I should just quit now because it's not fair to me or my hypothetical future students to have a teacher that isn't fully into what she's doing.

However, I've come this far and need a real job. Who knows maybe my next experience will change my mind. That will be 110 hours instead of 20 and I'll be in the classroom for longer than an hour each day. If it doesn't I just don't know what to do. I will probably still finish because I'll only have one semester left. That way I will hopefully be able to get a "grown up" job, be able to start paying off some of my loans, and be able to provide for myself.

I am thinking that either way, hate it or love it, once I do have a teaching job I am going to go back to school, or get an online degree, in photography. That way I do have a stable job & can do something I enjoy for extra money. Then I can either continue to do it on the side, weekends & summers, or if I end up actually making enough doing that & really dislike teaching I have a new career. Photography is also something that is easier to move around with than teaching which is good with Branden considering Air Force at the end of his National Guard contract because that would have us moving around possibly every 3-5 years.

Another thing I have considered is opening a daycare in my home...when I have a home. That way I could be a stay at home mom, still be around kids, and make $$.

Who knows. As of right now the next 1.5-2 years is freaking me out...a lot & I am starting to question my future. Part of me thinks yeah I'm so close but really I've come just as far & do I really want to spend another 1.5-2 years going for something I'm not sure I want to do anymore when I could spend that time going for something that I know I want to do...