The Miracle That Changed My Life (and led to education...)

In 2002, I experienced a miracle.

It took place in an unlikely spot:  a doctor’s office.  While lying on a hard table, a physician rubbing a sticky paste on my belly, I heard the clomping sound of a heartbeat and saw something moving on a monitor. The doctor smiled and quietly said, “You’ve waited for this your whole life, haven’t you?”  Yes, I guess I had. I saw my child for the first time that day. Just shy of my 44^th birthday, my son was born.

That moment changed my life in countless ways; in fact, it has defined it. Besides all the other things I had been – a daughter, a wife, a marketer, a Managing Director, a writer – I became a mother, a parent, a role model for my son. What I didn’t realize that day was that I became a “teacher.”  And what has come to be true is that his education – and that of those around him – has became my overriding priority.

Being active in his education is what has propelled me to pursue the field of education and has afforded me a profound respect and gratitude for the role teachers play. In particular, I’ve come to realize how critical the teachings we learn in our formative years are and just how true Robert Fulghum was in his book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”  I have been continuously encouraged by the enthusiastic support and thanks from the children, when I read them a book or assist in a project or simply help solve a math problem. Working with children has made me a better listener, more patient and more flexible. (Although my son complains that I am not such a great listener, as I don't always share his enthusiasm for aliens with guns or long-winded stories about inter-planetary wars!)
Since my son’s days in pre-K, I have spent hours assisting in the classroom, have been an active PTA member and Room Parent. I was voted onto the South Pasadena Educational Foundation in 2010, which has raised over $500,000 yearly to augment what the State has lacked in funding for our district. When I was asked to be an Art Docent for a school-wide program, I was thrilled to be able to develop a plan, teach and watch incredible talent unfold when our craft and video-based “Imagine Project” came to life.  When I brought my fictional series “The Jelly Bean Chronicles” to my child’s class, his teacher and I were so impressed by their enthusiasm and understanding of the concepts that she and I together developed a plan to use it as a pedagogical and fundraising tool.  

So, I have decided that my future is one in which education takes a front and center seat.

My goal is to help lead California to rise from the nation’s bottom in terms of student achievement, to be the beacon of educational success it once was.  I want to be at the “table” when decisions about what to cut and what to save are made. I want to help ensure that current events, global context and the arts are not lost on our children. I want to see a public school curriculum that includes second language study in the primary grades.  That is the kind of teacher and reformer I hope to be:  a globally minded leader, who can instill a can-do attitude and love of learning in her students and be a voice of reform and reason on a larger scale.