Walk, Run, and Fly

Hello everyone my name is Madeline Ramos and welcome. To start this blog I want to dive into what drove me to follow the career path that I chose. For those of you that don’t know what my career choice is, I chose to become a high school science teacher. If everything works out I would be the first female scientist in my family. As a child I questioned EVERYTHING. Sometimes my parents would introduce me to their friends and their children so I can annoy them with my questions. After a while they figured out how to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, what they did was subscribe to an encyclopedia company. Every year came a new edition and I remember how my parents would order them from 0-101 and A-Z, this was the start of me learning how to put numbers and letters in order but I was still too small to reach for these heavy textbooks from off the shelf, so I would simply point to what number or letter, mom or dad sometimes my older brother would get me the book, I would then take it and sit on the cold floor to turn the pages and look at the words but mostly the pictures that were so detailed, sometimes I would run to my room and show my stuffed animals trying to teach them what I learned. Coming from a dysfunctional family that struggled to learn English, I also struggled to be confident in everything I did. I grew shy, trying to hide myself from the world so that no one can hurt me. Most of my early childhood days consisted of watching shows on PBS, one of my favorite shows was “Between the Lions” which taught kids to read by sounding out words and explore the world around us, another was “Sesame Street” which included much of the same literary concepts. When I got to Kindergarten some kids thought I was crazy because I didn’t like watching “Barney” that was my first encounter with someone else’s opinion. Of course it didn’t stop me from asking why their view was different but by then it was time to go to recess and suddenly it didn’t matter anymore because I was free to run, scream and play tag while feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin which felt like the kisses my mother never gave me. After school my mom would take me to the library where I reunited with some of my friends but I went from being able to speak freely to then entering a place where speaking of any sort was not allowed. At that point I felt like the library was a prison but with books containing colorful pictures of animals that my mom would eventually ask me about, the typical phrases my mom would use are “look, what is that? Can you tell me what it is? What is it doing? Look how pretty!” but she would ask me in Spanish, sometimes she would ask me in English just to practice her tongue but she encouraged me to answer these questions in English so that I can be ahead of my class. To her disappointment, I did not turn out to love reading as much as she wanted me to, I even lost my library card and even to this very day I have not gotten a new one. What my mom didn’t understand is that I didn’t want to be told to look at something, I wanted to be the one pointing it out and talking about it freely, I didn’t care about being number one, I just wanted to enjoy my reading experience but I was constantly compared to other kids and to my older brother who seemed to be the perfect straight A student.From the many memories I have as a child, I remember how a teacher’s assistant would lay out a circular rug and call over all of the children on that same floor of the library to sit and  read with her, sometimes she would give us a copy of the book she was reading that day to read along. She had a good eye, she would help those who had trouble keeping up by pointing to each word and sounding them out, she would not move on until the child in need of assistance was caught up with the rest of the circle, I would know because sometimes I had trouble keeping up! At that age I was more interested in the colorful pictures rather than the words on each page. As I got older I realized that words can be just as colorful as pictures, if used correctly! I used to love reading along with the teacher’s assistant then breaking into smaller groups to color and learn more about what we read. My ears would perk to stories of love and magic! I was a dreamer, always with my head in the clouds somewhere, above anyone’s reach. The second anyone would try to shoot me out of the sky I would cry, running to my mom to seek comfort but to her it was nonsense she would throw me back into what I didn’t want to face, not alone at least. What was that monster? A page of questions regarding the book! I wish I could’ve enjoyed reading a book the way the other kids did, they would check out three books at a time while I had trouble choosing one! My sad yellow library card with a big blue circular sticker only got to be used a couple of times before I lost it intentionally. I was never really inspired to pick up a book and read it cover to cover out of free will. The drive for wanting to be as great as my older brother or even better is what kept me in school. Once I graduated from high school, my dream of becoming a teacher became clear as day. I wanted to be a music teacher, music was always a passion of mine and not many people know that, as a little girl I would grab the broom stick and sing along to the songs on the radio, when I was old enough to read music I knew I was destined to do something with it. The moment I stepped foot into New Jersey City University my dreams of becoming a music teacher died as I knew I would be putting myself in competition with others far talented than me, I remembered how my high school band director would scoff and laugh at me for even thinking about music as a career. What was next as a passion? Science! Right away my instincts adjusted to that new dream and the drive to pursue it because science awakes the little girl inside me that wants nothing more but to learn about the world around me. So did the music inside of me die as well? HECK NO! Today you’ll find me singing in my church’s choir as a soprano voice. Even though I’m not singing in English all the time I am still required to read the lyrics to every song I encounter whether it’d be in Spanish or Latin/ Greek!