I love learning. I love being in school. I love the challenge of a good test. My students do not. As a math teacher, I teach one of the most hated subjects in High School. Not only by my students, but by their parents, and my fellow teachers. Rarely a day goes by that I don’t hear the old saying, “I’m no good at math”.  Only in America are we proud of our ineptitude in math.

But I love learning. I didn’t particularly like math in High School. I just did well in it. I did well in all my classes. Because if the teacher put it out there for me to learn, I was going to learn it. Or at least learn it enough to satisfy the teacher’s requirements. I craved approval. And I usually went above and beyond the call of duty. Sometimes I think I faked my way through High School. Because it seemed so easy. Just do what is asked. Get an “A”. It doesn’t get any easier than that. Was I really learning anything? I played volleyball. For an amazing coach. But mostly I flew under the radar. I went to a school of rich, privileged preppies while I was from the “wrong side of the tracks”. No, really. If you go to a certain street in Lincoln, Nebraska, you will find lower income housing on one side of the railroad tracks, and what I considered amazing, super-rich homes on the other side. From single car garages to two and three car garages in a mere few feet. The contrast was that obvious. At least to me.

Then I went to college. The courses were more challenging, but also more rewarding. I was so excited to learn about stuff I didn’t even know existed, I changed majors four or five times. My leisure time was spent in the library searching for books like The Plague and Hiroshima Story. Fahrenheit 451? Hadn’t heard of it, but I found it on the library shelf and proclaimed it “AMAZING”! I reinvented myself. I was a theatre rat, also something new, I was a cheerleader and dancer and Student Activities Board Director, and…yes, I was involved in college. I went outside my comfort zone. I canoed for 9 days in the Everglades, I went rock climbing. I learned to dive off a diving board in college, and promptly called home on the hallway phone to let my mom know. I started to feel that I was somebody who could change the world. I kept my dorm room immaculate. It was money well spent, and I didn’t have to pay full price thanks to scholarships.

Then life happened. Real jobs. Husband. Kids. New priorities. And time slipped away from me and my educational goals. One of my professors at Dana (the now defunct college that I attended as an undergraduate) encouraged me to go straight through a Doctorate Program. I was sure I would. My dad has his PhD. I would, too! But teaching in a small Western Kansas town in the late 80’s didn’t really offer the post-graduate work I  needed, and soon babies came and then bills and then volunteering to coach t-ball and soccer and, well, you know how it goes. I took classes to renew that teaching license. I took a class in computers that was out of date by the time the renewal came about. It was the good old days of find something, anything, to get renewed.

But life couldn’t take from me the desire to learn. I tried other jobs. Real Estate, Battery Factory, Human Resources, online teaching. And I found them all fascinating and loved them! And along the way I learned more about the world and what is out there. Yes, I am a teacher. But I am a student first. And more and more I am beginning to believe that I am more than a teacher. I have talents beyond what I currently do for a living.

So tonight, I sent my application in for an MBA program. Not because I expect to complete the program, make $200,000 a year and live happily ever after. My lack of experience in the business world will make this journey especially difficult. But I do it  because my college experience gave me the confidence to say, “I am a life-long learner”. And no matter what I do with this new education, it will not be in waste. Because my flame burns brightest when I am tackling the unknown, the difficult, and the “just outside my comfort zone”. I say THANK YOU to my college professors at Dana. They lit that flame, and although I was a readily combustable material waiting for just the right spark, I don’t know if anywhere else would have had the same effect.

“O hail, fair Dana, hail to thee!
Our song to thee we sing:
May always we thy name revere
While truth to us be dear.”