I am the only person in my family to graduate high school and the only one to attend college. My academic career has been varied and full of extremes and I have been helped by so many along the way. My first grade teacher, about whom I have written before had a huge influence on my life--one that lasts to this day. She believed in me and taught me to start to believe in myself.
I spent the first years of my elementary education in public schools before making the switch to a fundamentalist Christian school in grade 5. For the rest of elementary and junior high and for the first two years of high school, I studied in a one-room school house and worked at my own pace. If I was good at a subject, I flew through it. If I wasn't good at a subject, I just gave up on it. Because of this, I never made it very far in Math. I was on the 8th grade course when I entered 10th grade. Algebra, self-taught? Impossible for me.
Somehow I ended up in high school in the "correct" grade. I had earned enough credits to be considered a junior and my schedule was made out to get me ready for college. That schedule, however, was so grueling that I almost dropped out. I was completely overwhelmed by having Spanish, English, Biology, Algebra, Geometry and History all at one time. Fortunately a guidance counselor intervened and I was given a less demanding course of study with the full understanding that I would have to have a few remedial courses in college. It was a condition I was happy to agree to and I finished high school with good grades and as an honor student.
College was a whole new world for me and was a completely new universe for my family. While they were familiar with high school, because my siblings had attended for a time, college was bewildering. We weren't a rich family and there was no money to help me. I began with grants and loans and ended up borrowing the entire time I was there. I was thrilled to be able to go, though and when the opportunity to move up from my junior college to the university came, I jumped at it.
As a married student, I was granted an apartment in the married student housing, so I had a quiet, controlled environment in which to study. But, wow, was I a fish out of water! I was completely lost when it came to knowing how to register for classes, how to get my classes to transfer and how to just "make it" while there.
Fortunately, I had two wonderful advisors: Dr. Sharpe and Dr. Akenson. Though they never mentioned how ill-at-ease I seemed at the university, they patiently explained everything I needed to do to finish the requirements of my degree.
I spent two and a half years at Tennessee Tech and during that time, I didn't just earn my degree, I became a woman, gained loads of confidence and learned that being in education and being successful educator means that one must develop the heart of a servant.
I learned from the best!
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