My "random" Spin Cycle selection from Sprite's Keeper is not really so random. Jen sent me this email:
"I wanna hear more about your work!!! WORK, WORK, WORK, yes, it's not out of the air, but I'm interested in the museum and your new position!"
And it's not just Jen. Most of our friends are curious about how I went from a part-time position in one of the retail locations at The Henry Ford, to becoming the Associate Curator for Education at the same location.
You might have gathered that it's not the traditional career path.
When I didn't return to the classroom last fall, I spent about six weeks searching for a job, and I realized that a teaching degree pretty well outfits you for...teaching. No surprise there. I had left what many would consider the ideal teaching position. The grade I wanted in an affluent district, with lots of parental support, good pay, and unequaled benefits. Any other job in the classroom was not going to match what I had just left.
After about 8 weeks of looking, applying, and not hearing a subsequent peep from anyone, I really was getting down on myself. Not qualified for anything, is what it felt like. Buddy and I did a budget review, and he somewhat reluctantly agreed that we could get by on just his income with some serious restructuring of finances, which enabled me to stay home and be the person that ran the household. Cooking, cleaning, organizing, running the errands, making life easier for the rest of the household.
That turned out to be a very good thing, because my back issues really flared up from September until the end of February this year, when the procedure I'd had done at the end of December finally took hold and I experienced some relief. Amen.
Sometime in March I was considering some part-time work, to add to the financial picture, and maybe allow a little more in the way of travel. You see, when I left teaching, I also opened up a whole new world of possibilities in off-peak traveling. Teachers get lots of vacation time. All of it during peak travel times.
I was on one of my frequent visits to the website of The Henry Ford, when I noticed a link to their seasonal Job Fair. Which I had missed, but there was still a link to fill out an application, which I promptly did, and selected the "Any" option under desired position.
A few days later, I got an email from a supervisor, asking me to interview for a retail position. Meh. At The Henry Ford! Yay! So I did, and I got the job, and went through the orientation and the training, and for six weeks, I was a very good, but very tired, retail employee. I had not worked high-volume retail for fifteen years, and those fifteen years were very heavy on me.
In the middle of May, I got an email from my ex-teaching partner that said:
"Hmmm…how much do you like selling pencils with bobble heads of famous inventors?"
Attached to that question was a link she had gotten from the Intermediate School District (the county) social studies mailing list. I don't know if she followed the link to the job description, but if she had, she'd have found: Me. Seriously. It was like the job description was written for me.
Suddenly I had to have this job. How awesome is it that this came along at just the time I was excited to try it out?
So here's what I do: I work with a team of people that provide ways for the public to use the assets of The Henry Ford (programs and products) for education, including K-12, professional development for teachers, and education of the general public. What else is a museum for, if not to educate? My main focus right now is finishing up the preparations for the first summer workshop, sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Forty teachers of all levels from around the country will come to The Henry Ford to meet with experts in the field, and to be immersed in the experience of the Industrial Revolution.
Henry Ford is famously quoted as having said, "History is bunk." Taken out of context, as it usually is, it seems at cross purposes with this collection he established and left behind. In context, though, he was talking about the history he was taught in school as a child. Memorizing dates the names of battles seemed a waste of time to him, because there was no context, no connection to be made between all that and "real life." And he was right.
My new job makes me part of the connection that was missing in the olden-day education, the connection that is only beginning to be present in modern education.
I like to think I'm part of the solution.
Ed: Although I am employed by The Henry Ford, this post, in now way, reflects the opinions of The Henry Ford.
