why is she running?

My mom has a friend whose first thought when she sees someone running is they must really have to go to the bathroom because why else would you run?!

As a runner I always tell her that there are many reason why people go running and it's fair to say that 99% of them are not in pursuit of a bathroom!

I guess the same is true with authors. There are a lot of different reasons why people write and I think it’s safe to say 99.9% of us are not writing because we need to find a bathroom!

I became a teacher twelve years ago because I love children, I wanted to be a contributing member of my community, and I wanted to make a difference. Throughout my career education has changed dramatically. I started my career teaching in a multicultural and multi-economic school. It was amazing. The families, the teachers, the kids, the aids…all wanted to be there. Test scores were important, shrinking the achievement gap was on the top of our list, and making sure every child was cared for, nurtured, and was having fun learning were all our priorities. Slowly that began to change. I have taught in four schools since then, all public, all but one low economic and the shift from whole child to test scores has sung so far that teaching and unfortunately learning has becoming more and more boring, uninteresting, scripted, and not for me.

Okay, I’ll step down from my soapbox. But to go back to the reasons I wanted to become a children’s book author.

Helping children grow and learn is my passion. In the last few years of teaching I felt like I wasn’t giving my all because I was so bogged down with all the crap. (sorry I couldn’t think of a more fitting word that would be appropriate here!) I felt like if I stopped teaching and wrote books that I could still make a difference in children’s lives and be a happier person. So I thought about the lessons I taught my kids and the areas where so many first and second graders are lacking and wrote some books. I hope these books make a difference otherwise I’m going back to the classroom because teaching children is my passion and we should all live our lives driven by our passion.

So the reasons I run are to clear my head, to think, to pray, and to justify that big glass of red wine. The reasons I write are to make a difference in kids lives, to help parents educate their children (teachers can’t do it alone), and to bring some fun and hope into kids lives.