Personal History

Why do you want to become a speech-language pathologist? What was it about being a speech-language pathologist that drew you to this profession?

I'm going to start this discussion off with my personal story (well, part of it at least...and it's not always pretty).  I came to college with the intention of becoming a medical technologist (I don't know why I wanted to do that, I just got it into my head somewhere).  I managed well my first year but the fall semester of my sophomore year was a different story (well, many stories...most that I really do NOT want to share).  To make a short story out of those many stories, by the end of that semester it was clear that I needed another major.  I came back to school with absolutely no idea of what I wanted to do.  My Resident Advisor, and the girl in the room next door to me in the dorm were both majoring in Speech Pathology.  I had seen some of the things they had worked on (screening folders, phoneme cards) and began asking them questions.  During that first week back, I made a decision to change to Speech Path, went through add/drop and picked up 21 hours, had to get a job because of this little disagreement about financial support with my father, and the rest, as they say, is history.  The really interesting part of this question for me is really not in that part of the story...the interesting part comes from me thinking about what drew me to teaching.

In the early 90's I attended a Writing Across the Curriculum workshop.  Back then, many of the attendees were from the English department (it's much more diverse now in terms of disciplines represented).  One evening, a bunch of these English folks were sitting around talking about how they wanted to be writers and that they were just teaching until they made it as writers.  It was clear that this was the feeling of the majority.  Suddenly, out of the corner comes this strong, clear voice that said, "I was called to teach."  That gave me goosebumps because in that instant I woke up to the same realization...that I had been called to teach.  The voice was Dr. Dolores Johnson in the English department who has since become a dear friend, mentor, fellow writer, and personal cheerleader.  In that moment of quiet courage I learned what it means to be proud to teach and I've been a different, better I hope, teacher ever since. 

Needless to say, teaching has been a good fit for me.  My work here at Marshall has enabled me to explore and research in areas of interest...specifically the ways that language, writing, teaching, learning, and technology intersect and what happens as a result of those intersections.  In one of postings from last week I talked about this in more detail and explained what kept me coming back for more!