Many of you first knew me as the Science Lady.  Now a lot of you know me as the art teacher, but the funny thing is that my first degree is an English Degree from UNC-Chapel Hill. 

Making decisions about what to be when you ‘grow up’ is difficult.  It is also difficult as a teenager to listen to adult advice.  Luckily I did follow my father’s advice one time.

 I was accepted to a renowned art school in Savannah, GA which was a great honor. As I neared time for a final college decision I listened to my father who recognized that I had many more interests than just art.  Art school would have been focused solely on an art career. At UNC, I toyed around with history, English, and religious studies as majors.  Eventually my love of reading won out and I settled on English major.

But things weren’t really settled and life presents opportunities that might change the path.  My older sister worked in a science museum near Chapel Hill.  She conned, I mean, convinced me to work with their afterschool program.  I fell in love with working with children.

I learned to teach science with a hands-on approach. Why hadn’t someone taught me the same way!?  However, this job ended up leading me back to art.  I decided I wanted to teach and that art was a tool to teach a little bit of everything that I loved.  My dream was to teach Middle School art.

My father gave some more wise advice to finish the few credits for the English Degree and then go for the Art Education Degree.  Throw in a little Religious Studies minor and that was my college career.  It took me six years of work to get what I wanted, but I wouldn’t rewind to do anything differently.  I feel that I use all of my experiences to enrich my teaching.

How did that science piece come in?  Well, after getting my teaching degree, I ended up being offered a job at the Museum of Life and Science where I had worked in college.  I took them up on it for awhile because you really can have more than one focus in life.  Working for the Museum was wonderful.  They made everyone’s ideas apart of what the new museum looks like today.

 I then taught art in two elementary schools in Guilford County before my daughter Laura was born.  Art on a cart!  What an experience!!!  I saw 850 students a week (and I knew each one of them by name).

When I walked out the doors in my last teaching job, I was never going to teach again.  I didn’t like the system of teaching even though I loved being with students.  The day I found CSD I knew it would change my family.  Eventually it healed me as a teacher.  All the things I knew were right about teaching were being done at CSD.  All the things that drove me away from teaching didn’t exist at CSD.  I eased in with the science, but when given the chance for my ‘dream’ job, I jumped!