A Change in Paths

 It is already halfway through October and as I hand out pumpkin stickers to my students and wear the Jack O Lantern earrings I have dug out of my jewelry box, I continue to ask myself, "Why am I here?" The answer may seem obvious, at least to the administration. I was hired to teach students at this charter school--all minorities from the inner city--to read. And for the most part, I am enjoying this twist in my career path; I deliberately stepped off the trajectory that was to take me from teaching middle school to being a fully tenured college professor. When I left Westtown Middle School four years ago, it was with the intention to never again take on recess or bus duty but to concentrate on "higher education." I was certain with every fiber of my being that my future lay with colleges and universities. After all, I had already spent five years working as an adjunct for Neumann University, my alma mater, and my doctor of education degree was just a dissertation away.

Sigh. Life is funny. Sometimes the path forward takes you back.

In my case, the path had something to do with the economy. I had been at Westtown for ten years, their reading specialist practically in name only for the parents of students at this upper middle class independent school really preferred to hire outside tutors rather than have their children undergo the "stigma" of having to work with the reading specialist. More sighs. Having spent five years getting the M.Ed., it was disheartening to pack it away in mothballs and spend most of my time teaching math and English, proctoring study halls and snatching kids from recess for "five minute reads." Still, it was a decent job and the pay was good and the benefits were there and I had summers free. If it did not exactly satisfy my desire to make a difference in the world of education, I assured myself that on an individual basis, I made a difference to a few students. Almost every year, I thought about leaving. The problem was that I was comfortable at Westtown.

I should probably insert here someplace that I felt that God had provided the position at Westtown for me at a time when the world as I knew it began to crumble. My husband, Ron, began to experience problems with clinical depression in 1998, the same year I started working on my Master's degree. He had several stays in the crisis center and psychologists began to dot my appointment book. At home, my easy-going husband became sullen and sad, often bursting into anger at the slightest provocation. I tried to shield our three children as much as I could. I was frightened, but I could not let them see it. I became overwhelmed with the fear that one day Ron would not be able to work and that I would be the financial provider. At the time, I was teaching English at a small and lovely Christian school, just eleven minutes from my house. But the salary was miniscule; as a second income, it provided for some extras. As the main income, it would not cut it. Still, I hoped to hang on at The Christian Academy until I had my M.Ed

In June of 1999, I knew that staying at TCA was impossible. Ron had a major breakdown right before graduation, threatening everyone at his work and finally needing to be hauled off to Friends Hospital in Philadelphia. It was with much prayer and sadness that I decided to take the offer from Westtown, which offered me twice the salary as TCA, and take on the responsibility of supporting my family.

Here is the odd thing, though, about the offer from Westtown School. Up until April, I had never even heard of Westtown. I got a call from the principal one night who said that a professor at West Chester had suggested I might be interested in a position as sixth grade core teacher. Would I care to come up and visit? Well, a visit was just a visit and not a commitment, so I went. I was impressed. They were impressed.
The principal, Phyllis, called me the next day to ask me to come up and do a demonstration lesson. Ron was starting to unravel at the time and I was scared. I agreed to a demo lesson and we set a date, but the day before I was to teach the lesson, Ron had an anxiety attack and was taken to Chester County Hospital. I remember calling Phyllis from the parking lot and telling her that I would not be able to come in that day. She was regretful, but understanding. She wished me well.

Two weeks later, Phyllis called me and offered me the position. She told me that no one else they had seen could hold a candle to me and even though she had never seen me teach, she wanted me to have the job. Again, I demurred. But Phyllis was nothing if not persistent; they needed me at Westtown, she said. I could start a reading support program. I could make a difference.

So I tearfully turned my letter of resignation in at TCA, wrote letters to all of the junior students who would have been in my senior class, and packed the classroom accumulation of three years into the trunk of my car. I did not expect to use much of it at Westtown.

Westtown School was and is a Quaker institution founded in 1799 by Philadelphians who deemed the location in Chester County just far enough away from the city to spare their children the Yellow Fever. It has a long, long history, a 400 acre campus, and small class sizes. While there are scholarship students, most parents who send their children to Westtown have the means to pay the $24,000 a year tuition without blinking an eye. For the first few months, I experienced culture shock. Not only did this elite school have all the bells and whistles my struggling little Christian school did not, I also needed to become accustomed to the Quaker way of life and worship. For the most part, the faculty was nice to me, but teaching middle school was vastly different from teaching high school; I spent many evening planning lessons and trying to fit in.

After spending the summer at Friends' Hospital, Ron transitioned to an outpatient program at American Day in Drexel Hill. Then he returned to work and seemed, for a while, to have put his personal demons to rest. I was starting to breathe a bit easier when, once again, our lives shifted. This time, it was the careless driver of a red pickup truck, trying to outrun a red light on Paoli Pike, who changed things. It is ironic to think that someone I have never met face to face has had such an extraordinary impact on our lives. On March 1, 2000, the red Ford hit Ron's Taurus smack on the driver's side door. The rest is, unfortunately, history.