Carrie Cox’s Corner

Today I am thankful for being a teacher. When I turned 18 years old, we were at a friend’s house in Fort Walton Beach Florida. The sweet sisters there threw me a little party. Leah got me a gift basket full of pampering items. Carl played me happy birthday on the piano, we played “Bull Dung” which was our g rated version of another game, and I felt so happy and blessed. My life was before me. I knew what I wanted to do… it’s what I had always wanted to do since I was a little girl: become a nurse.

Ha, not what you were thinking, right? Well as I lay in my bed that evening, reflecting on life, trying to figure it all out since I was 18 and apparently on the 18th birthday evening something is supposed to magically happen and you are supposed to suddenly know beyond a shadow of a doubt what you are supposed to do with the rest of your life (apparently, because everyone asks you that as soon as they hear either A.) You are a senior in high school, or B.) You are 18 years old. Well I was both, so that settled it, they must ask and I must know.

But as I sat there, thinking, and maybe in some form of my baby Christianity even praying (although I don’t even think I knew that type of meditation was praying at the time), I realized nursing was not the path for me. Somehow that night, almost seemingly out of the blue, I declared, I wanted to be an English teacher! So I guess my birthday blessing and future fairy did come exactly on my birthday.

Pivot!

I took a gap year after high school. It didn’t have such a cool name back then. I just thought it was called “loser,” lol. My dad encouraged me to. He and mom traveled for the ministry, and he wanted me to keep traveling with them without the worry of school. I wasn’t really excited about it, I was excited about getting my own life started, but I submitted to him. You know now looking back, I’m really glad that I did. We made such wonderful memories that year. My dad passed away when I was 26, so having that year with him as an adult is priceless to me now.

After that I registered for school at good ole Dyersburg State Community College. It’s a pretty humble beginning for an educational career, but to me it was huge. I was homeschooled every year except for my kindergarten year, so every school seemed big. I remember going to take my ACT. I didn’t know how to bubble. I missed out on bubbling 101 at public school, and had to learn that one on my on right before they began the timed test. Thankfully I excelled in reading, so the actual test part wasn’t so bad.

I got started at DSCC. I knew I still wanted to become a teacher, but I also was interested in so many other things. They had a good music department, so I decided I could have a double major in Music and English. I played piano and violin and sang, so it seemed like a good opportunity to learn. Learn did I ever?

Little did I know that being a music major was a full-time job. My theory classes were literally every day, plus I did piano, choir, music appreciation, along with all my other basic classes.

It was a challenge, especially living much of the time by myself while my parents traveled. I grew up a lot during that time. I was learning more than just what my classes taught me.

Two years later I graduated with an Associates Degree with a concentration in music. I even got to play my violin in the orchestra at my commencement. Exactly three weeks later I was married to my love and moving to Texas. .

Well, I wasn’t a teacher yet, but I did find myself in Houston. I went back to school in 2008 and registered at the University of Houston pursing an English career and graduated there in 2010 with a B.A. degree in English with a minor in Education. Finally six years later my little dream of becoming an English teacher was coming to pass.

While at the University I had to leave music classes behind this time, but I am very thankful now for all that I learned at DSCC and for my professor, Dr. Feather. She was one of the toughest teachers I ever had. She literally threw erasers at us, but she would fight for her music majors with all her might.

I just looked her up to see how she was doing.

I found her obituary from 2022.

It’s a bit shocking, honestly.

It makes my heart sad that I didn’t get to tell her how much she helped me to grow in my first few years in education. I did go by and see her a few times when we would come home to visit, but life gets faster when you grow older. I don’t think I’ve seen her since 2010.

Excuses….

This Thanksgiving, if you think of someone that you love, someone that has helped you-tell them now. Don’t wait until you see their obituary.

I still use some of the things she taught me about teaching music from the ultimate beginning. You start with a circle and that is your whole note…

Where would we be without teachers?

Today I am still teaching. I started in 2007 helping in our Christian school, and now my husband and I are running it. It’s been 20 years since I was reflecting on life that evening at Fort Walton Beach. I believe I made the right choice. I love teaching students to read and write. I love opening up books and making them come alive. Now I’m sure I’ve had a few kids sleep through my class, but we have had some amazing classes where the stories and the books that we were reading became real. I mean really real. Where you hear the words and your soul is moved and then your life and your thinking are changed. What power! And then to learn how to create that as well, what art! What workmanship! The poet laureate William Blake’s words can be applied to the pen,

“What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry”

Any image created. Any fierce beast waiting to devour, produced, any thought fashioned and immortalized for eternity, all through simple words.

You know, words can heal, too. Isn’t that what a nurse does, helps to heal? So maybe my childhood dream did come true, maybe I am a nurse to the soul and mind and words are the salve that is applied.

Ha, maybe not.

But I am thankful to be a teacher today. Even when grades are due (which they are tomorrow) and I rethink my profession (which I have), and as I lay on the floor gazing at the ceiling telling anyone who will listen, “Grading is hard” (which I did today), I am still thankful to be a teacher.

I get my butt up. I look at the words that my students have created, and I’m proud. I’m proud of them, and I’m proud that I pushed them, that I critiqued them, that I encouraged them, and that I was able to help them achieve what they thought was impossible.

Teaching is pretty cool.