Was Blind, But Now I See: I've Been Called to Make a Difference

I just got back from Revive, a Thursday night worship service at The University of Findlay, and I had such an intense experience that I just have to write about it. I didn't really want to use this blog for personal reasons, but tonight's experience relates to my future as an educator, so I believe it belongs here.


As the people close to me know, I have had struggles with my faith in the past. I grew up in a United Methodist church, but I strayed away from it during high school and lost God and all religion during a five year span of my life. I experienced with a variety of different religions, but I felt like something was missing. Two years ago, I went on my first mission work trip with Habitat for Humanity to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and during that week I was so overcome with His glory due to our crew leader Bryan's devotional that I accepted Him back into my life. It's been a long run since then, but I've been trying my best to grow closer to him. I joined a wonderful church in Findlay, I started diving deeper into the Bible, and I decided to live my life for Him in every aspect. Many who knew me in high school and the early years of college found this to be a drastic change, but I had finally become part of the fellowship of the unashamed, and I wasn't afraid to admit that I was finally, once again, a Christian. Things have gone better in my life since that mission trip, but I know I have so much more to do in my journey with Christ. Tonight was another chapter in that story.


Even though I have grown a lot stronger in my faith, I'm not ashamed to admit that I should be doing a lot more. I've joined a great church within such a loving community, but there are times--naturally in my busy life--that my mind drifts off during sermons and other aspects of my longing to know more about Christ. I know this isn't right, but I'm only human--it happens to the best of us. Things changed tonight though. In the middle of the music worship Pastor Matt stopped the music team and allowed us time to distance ourselves from our friends in order to sit and chat with God. He opened up our eyes to the fact that we were singing the words of the songs, but did we really mean what we were singing? Were we literally or spiritually falling on our knees for Jesus? Were we ready to wholeheartedly grow deeper with Him tonight?


I've been struggling a lot with a variety of situations in life in which I won't go into, but one of those areas is my future. Even though I have a degree in education, I've still been trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I knew that I wanted to do something meaningful in which I could make an impact in the lives of others, but even this summer I was looking at ideas all over the career spectrum, at times branching away from education altogether. I just recently started graduate school to earn a master of education degree in reading because it felt right, but I went in blind not knowing if it was truly where I was supposed to be, where I was called to be.


Tonight I was reassured that I am truly following my calling, that of teaching others to read. I swear that God was there with me and He touched me with His presence tonight. I know that may sound crazy, and I've never experienced this before so it sounds crazy to me as well. However, I opened my heart to Him and laid everything on the line. I asked for guidance on where I was going and if it was right, and He showed me that I have been called to work in the area of reading, that my graduate degree was the perfect choice. I didn't get specifics on if I should be working in a school setting, with a non-profit, or even in another country, but I'm sure that will come in due time. I just know that I was made to help children develop the wonderful and amazing power of reading, and I will now do this through Him.


After experiencing this moment, I was overcome with emotion. I'm a very sentimental guy; I have cried during about every chic flick I've ever watched, but tonight was a different kind of crying. I sat there in the auditorium just weeping after receiving my call. I couldn't believe God was actually putting me in these shoes in which I would be able to help thousands of children develop this ability that will help open doors to adventure, doors to knowledge, doors to Him. I kept asking God, "Are you sure about this? You really want me to do this?" And He reassured me after every question that I was truly being called to make a difference. I feel blessed and honored that I'm heading in a direction that not only I want to travel in, but that he wants me to go towards as well. I can't wait to start fulfilling this dream, but until then I will continue to grow deeper with Him, to give myself over to Him, and to allow Him to use me and place me where He wants. It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally in his palm, and I'm so ready for the ride.

I Found My Future Through the Eyes of Holden Caulfield

     Life has been an ever-growing and changing process for me, but not until I spent some time at The University of Findlay did I finally realize who I would [be] in the future. I transferred to Findlay after one semester at The University of Toledo and started taking classes in the physician assistant program. Ever since I was little, I knew I wanted a career that involved helping others, but I hadn’t quite figured out the right fit yet.  I started working at Washington Intermediate’s after school program, helping students read, and attending The University of Findlay Ohio Student Education Association (UFOSEA) meetings with my sister even though I wasn’t in the College of Education, and after helping Findlay’s youth one-on-one and experiencing the family-like atmosphere among all the students and faculty in the COE, I knew I was home.

     After one semester at Findlay, I got out of the physician assistant program and declared my major as Adolescent-Young Adult Language Arts/English and English-Teaching Emphasis. I was put into the classroom right away with the Van Buren LAMP program, and every consecutive year I learned more and more about the field of education.

     It felt unreal that I was actually going to be a high school English teacher, following the footsteps of my mother, until I had my junior block experience at Van Buren High School. There was a student named "Damien" in one of my classes who turned himself off when it came to learning. Nothing seemed to interest him, and his motivation and grades reflected that. Before I even started teaching my classes, I began to talk with him and encourage him to do his work in ways that would interest him. I found out that he really enjoyed military events and history, so I suggested books for him to read and gave him ideas to write about for a short story project the class was working on. I also encouraged him to read leisurely whenever he had his work completed. This turned out to have a larger effect than I imagined.

     That year Van Buren was having a book tournament in which books would be matched up against each other; students would read the books, pick the best one, and move on to the next match. By the end of the year, the favorite book of the students would be picked out. Students were asked to volunteer to be in this program and provide money to purchase copies of the books. When the day came to sign up for the program, it came to my surprise that "Damien" was the first student to sign up to be in the reading program. When I started my experience, he wasn’t interested in anything related to English, but through my encouragement he began to enjoy the wonderful world of reading.

     I have been able to share my passion for reading inside and outside of the classroom, and this brings me joy because this passion has been growing for quite a long time. My Grandpa and Grandma Midtgard were the first two people to really encourage me to pick up a book. My parents both had busy schedules during my youth, so my grandparents would watch my sister and me during the daytime. Each day they came, they’d have a brand new book for each of us. When we were really young, they would read to us, and as the days went by, we finally grew into reading to them.  Little did I know that this would be the foundation for my reading addiction today, where I have a two thousand book private library.
     When I look back through the years, there was hardly ever a time when I didn’t have a book in my hands. To this day, I still use dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other books of information to look information up. There is something about actually holding a book, smelling a book, and connecting with a book that makes the whole reading experience worthwhile. My grandparents’ teaching me how to read, has led to my passion to teach others how powerful and intoxicating of an experience reading can be for them.

     My love for reading sprung up again this past semester with my analytical writing class.  We were asked to complete in-depth research projects centered on our future careers. At this point in time I knew that I loved reading and teaching, but I hadn’t put the two ideas together yet. The day I thought that I might be able to include reading in this project, I decided that this paper would be the decider on whether or not I would want to concentrate on literacy and reading as an aspect of my future career. My paper was titled “’One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish’ to ‘Lord of the Rings’: The Importance of Parental Involvement in Regards to Reading with Their Adolescent Children.”  Research had shown that children’s love for reading tended to dim around grades four or five, and this happened to be the time in which most parents stopped reading with their children. Therefore, I suggested that parents’ continuous support in their children’s reading lives would encourage the students to stay motivated and passionate about reading.
     After typing up this report, I knew that this was definitely the field for me.  I worked on this research project throughout the whole semester bringing in my knowledge of the DIBELS, MASI, and various other assessments that I’ve conducted in the past. I interviewed literacy scholars in the field, and I developed a plan to put my theories into practice. After presenting my findings to a field of colleagues, my professor said that my ideas were very credible and that I had encouraged her to work more with her teenage son when it comes to reading. This comment, along with all my interesting findings, encouraged me to go back to my roots and bring my passion for reading into my future career.

     I would like to get a master of arts in education with a concentration on reading. With this degree, I would have even more knowledge on how to connect with my students and encourage them to read. After teaching high school English for many years, I would like to become a reading specialist, and, finally, a college professor. My life has been ever-growing and changing, but when I have stopped to reflect, two things have stayed constant: reading and teaching. Reading and teaching have been involved in every facet of my life, and I would like to see that continue in the future.
     I decided to go into teaching so I could share my passion for reading with the youth of this nation. Oddly enough, a classic American literature book, The Catcher in the Rye, encouraged me to do this. In the novel, the main character Holden Caulfield states this, “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me.  And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."  I couldn’t have spoken these words better myself. I look at all of the students I’m going to encounter in the future in this way. They’re all playing on the cliff and struggling in their own way near the edge. I want to be there to provide a helping hand along the way. It is my goal to not let any student near the edge of the cliff. If I can share my passion for reading and learning with them, and if I can connect to them in way that is individualized for them, then I know I can be a catcher in the rye, and that is a part of my life, along with reading and teaching, that is never going to change.