So here I am, back on U.S. soil after 6 weeks abroad. I feel like Lucy and her siblings as they stepped out of the wardrobe from Narnia. They had lived a life full of experience, change, and growth, only to return to a world just as it was when they left; a place frozen in time, awaiting their return to go on.
I feel it is the same for me now that I'm back. Though it is not the same day I left, the same obligations awaited me when I returned that loomed over my head before my departure, but I am different now, changed forever by this experience overseas. Never again will I approach a classroom the same way, or treat students like I have before. Nor will I look at life through the same lens I always used in the past.
The walls in Belfast, murals of Derry, Galway's pub, Kill 'O the Grange's 6th Class, words about parents, God and Santa from Jr. Infants, all these things and more have impacted my life in such a way that will effect how I live from now on.
My last days were full of lots of good-byes from the students and staff. My last night with my host family we were sitting watching television and my host mom looked over at me and said, "It's going to be odd not having you here. You've become like part of the furniture." She went on to explain that it was a compliment and that, while all the students they've hosted have been grateful and wonderful students, they had their own life, came and went, and life was the same with or without them there. I, however, had become part of their family. I lived with them, interacted with their lives, and would be missed. That comment really meant a lot to me after she explained.
I am so thankful for the experience of being able to teach abroad. It has changed my views of the classroom, and made me thankful to be a teacher in the states. Though I will return to Ireland as soon as life allows, it has made me appreciate being a teacher in the states. The cuts made to Irish education I described in my blog about the protest, I do not believe would ever happen here. As I mentioned above, I will not be the same.