Who Am I? That is the question I have been asking myself all week. I am a wife, a mom, a grandma (LaLa), an educator.
I am Lori Hammond. I am 53 years old and returning back to school. I am classified as a “non-degree adult learner.” Why am I continuing my education? When I hit 60 hours of college coursework, I get a pay raise. In addition, I want to prove to myself that I am capable of success in higher learning.
Education has been my entire life. After completing school,I married an educator. I began working in the school system in 1999. My first assignment in the school was to create Braille for one of our blind students. This was the beginning of emerging technologies for impaired students. This job quickly began to fade as technology advanced and students graduated. I then became an elementary librarian. Have you ever seen that look of amazement in the eyes of a young child as you read to them? Their imaginations light up; their minds drift into the story you are reading to them. These experiences molded me into who I am…. I am a mom, a LaLa, I am an educator.
Today I work in a classroom as an Educational Aide with students who have multiple learning disadvantages. I go into work and each day is a new day. Some days are difficult, and some a pure delight. You and I take advantage of learning every time we open a book, read it and appreciate what we’ve read. However, there are students whose reading level is lower than the average student. There is joy when these students begin to build reading skills.
Today I dealt with a student who is dyslexic. He displays the appearance of being the “tough guy.” In reality he is very intelligent, because he is an auditory learner. Now, who am I? I am the person who sat down with him and showed him I understand his problem as I wrote words backwards, not skipping a beat. I related to him. From that point on, he showed me he had a desire to learn.
As for my future, I may one day graduate from The Ohio State University. I’m searching and researching what I want to study. It could be along the lines of education, or maybe that side hobby of data collecting and organizing it into charts.