About the Author

Renewal means going back to your roots, finding out who you are and why you got into your job in the first place and bringing that spirit into your daily work. It can also mean preparing yourself by building up escape velocity from your current job to a different one.

When I was in my twenties, with two young children, I thought my career life was over. Can you imagine being in your twenties and thinking that?

One day, as I was walking from from helping out at a summer bible school, my former high school principal stopped me to chat. "You should be a school teacher," he said. I replied that it was too late for me. Besides, I had no way of getting to London Teacher's College, sixty miles away. He, however, knew someone who was going to commute to the college for the coming school year. He also told me that this would be the last year that the teacher's certification program would be one year. Starting next year it would be a two-year program, a time commitment that was beyond my reach.

My mother took out a loan on her retirement savings for me to enroll at teacher's college. Over the next ten years, through personal and professional earthquakes, I earned two university degrees: a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Education. I also initiated a national education project where I in-serviced schools and districts across Canada--including the Arctic for the federal government, in Europe for the Canadian Armed Forces, and in the Caribbean for the Royal Commonwealth Society. I did this while doing my day job for my school board. Along the way I received the Order of Canada for my Canadian Studies work.

In 1986 I took a two-year leave of absence from my board to complete my doctoral studies. When I returned to my school board it was time for me to be set free. I replied to an ad in The Globe and Mail and headed for the Yukon. 

(Excerpt from To Emma, for the Love of Teaching.)