As I sit here now, in my free period at end of the day, I realize that this moment is the fruition of so many carefully laid plans and just pure, accidental luck. I'm talking right place, right time, right mindset kind of luck.
At 18 I decided that for the rest of my life I wanted to be a teacher. This prompted me to apply to colleges with good teaching programs, and subsequently accept an offer from on of them. The goal was that after four years, I would be standing in front of my own social studies classroom. Yeah.
This educational course was planned (if you can really plan anything at 18); I planned to go to college to be a teacher. However, let's just dash a bit of luck in there; I wound up hearing about and choosing to apply to live in an international dormitory. Here I met some pretty amazing people and learned some intriguing things about the rest of the world. Wander-itch inspiring things.
Then I decided to go to graduate school. I can say I did this because I need a masters to continue teaching in New York, and that is certainly true. But if I am being honest, it's because I was not ready to leave school yet. In graduate school, I just so happened to be registered for a course with a professor from China. A professor that invited her whole class to come teach in China.
Circumstances led to a certain lack of desirable local social studies positions, which led me to think about the reality of teaching in China beyond, "Oh hey, that might be cool." I put into motion finding and securing a job in China. I went to China and loved it. However, teaching English as a language was not really what I had been trained to do, nor where my educational passions lay. While on summer vacation and traveling about China, I happened upon a man named Josh in a hostel. Josh told me all about an organization whose main goal is to pair teachers looking to teach outside of the United States with schools looking for native English speaking teachers. He literally told me how I could continue teaching abroad while also earning a more competitive salary and teach the subject matter I preferred. I just happened to run into a man in the mountains of China who was handing me a path leading exactly where I wanted to go.
When I got home from China, I registered for this organization and began a process that would take over a year to complete, but would land me in Bahrain. Teaching Social Studies. In front of my very own social studies class for the first time.
That vague and distant future plan that I had when I was 18, nearly ten years earlier, has finally come to fruition. It has taken turns that, at 18, I could never in a billion years have thought it would take. If you had told 18 year old Rachel that she would live in two different countries before she was 30, she would have laughed in your face. 18 year old Rachel did not want to go to college. 18 year old Rachel both feared and hated change. 18 year old Rachel wanted to buy her parents house from them and live in it for the rest of her life. I am not sure there was any profound moment that changed my life plans, just a lot of opportunities that I didn't hesitate (much*) to explore.
But here I am in Bahrain, wrapping up my sixth day of teaching in my first social studies classroom, finishing a blog post that was supposed to explain to you what my teaching experience has been like so far, when my day starts, the kind of classes I am teaching. Spoiler Alert, provided I don't get hit by any more moments of "how did I get here?" my next post will elucidate my life as a teacher.
I mean sometimes, how I got here is literally mind blowing. You ever have that feeling?
* Okay, there was definitely some huge and overwhelming hesitations for many of my big life decisions (I mean, choosing to live in the Middle East was not an easy decision) but I went ahead and did them anyway.
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