Who Am I? Defining Self

“Harpo, who dis woman?”  Who is this woman raving about wanting her life back?  Well, let me go a little factual and tell you a little bit about myself.

I am Jan Yvette Jordan Bunting, and I am standing tall on top of the hill in the Half Century Club, 50 years strong and looking forward to another happy year this summer.  I am a proud, lifelong resident of NC.  I have lived all of my life, except for a few summers, within these tar-heeled borders.  My husband’s name is Gerald, known to the world as Duke, and as Maxwell to an intimate few.  We are both avid NC State Wolfpack fans.  We have two boys, Jordan Maxwell, in college and playing basketball, and Jalen Christopher, who loves to play football and is a budding entrepreneur.  Their personalities are like night and day, Jordan being calm and laid back (except on the basketball court—he’s a beast!) like his dad, and Jalen being a wild, know-it-all spitfire like his mom.  My first two years of college life were spent at Duke University, where I sang in the Duke Chorale under the choral direction of the famous J. Benjamin Smith, and pledged Delta Sigma Theta sorority.  Also at Duke, I completed half of a master’s of arts degree in Liberal Studies, with a focus on American Studies.  I therefore have deep loyalties to both of these schools.  I have a plethora of knowledge in language arts, literature, and an undergraduate degree in speech communication (speech and language disorders) from NCSU.

After graduating college and a brief stint as a shoe salesman at Endicott Johnson Shoes, I got my start in the world of teaching as an educational aide in a Willie M behavioral school in Chapel Hill. From there I started full-fledged teaching as a speech and language teacher in 1989.  I taught steadily from that time until 2012 (a bittersweet story unto itself, maybe to be told at a later time…) and also have teaching experiences in the community college setting, a sheltered workshop, a prison, and finally a charter school.  I am a certified teacher (though not currently teaching), middle school language arts, having earned 17 renewal credits for this past 5 year cycle, which means I am still qualified to teach in the state of NC until 2018.  Those renewal credits include expertise in content area reading, teaching struggling readers at the middle school level, vocabulary enrichment, podcasting and integrating technology into my language arts lessons, and the new common core standards for language arts.  I mention those 17 credits not to brag but to highlight my hard work and dedication to my profession.  I love creative ventures like art and music, reading, and talking about books.  I also love to write and have a penchant for history and literature, so teaching language arts and being able to infuse history, music and art into my lessons was the ultimate heaven.

I earned my master's degree from NCSU in 2005 as a part of getting my NC certification in middle grades language arts.  I was known at my school as a master teacher, a teacher leader in the classroom.  The knowledge I gained at the graduate level made me a much better teacher, with a wealth of research based practices and information that I could use for classroom instruction and for sharing with fellow teachers in professional development workshops.  I worked on my degree while I taught, and generously shared what I learned with my students and colleagues, which helped us to raise the educational bar in our school in so many ways.  The extra knowledge and experience gained at the graduate level is invaluable, and gives teachers a greater arsenal to use with students to help them maximize learning, to support literacy, as well as teach reading and other skills necessary to succeed in our 21st century, global world.

I close this post with a Name Poem, found from a lesson plan for one of my poetry unit examples to model with my students.  I hope you have enjoyed getting to know me.  I know that I enjoyed today’s reflection on my life so far, a reflection that undoubtedly has many more layers to unravel, but still has been a fond look back on the road I am traveling, while standing at a crossroads, trying to figure out what to do with myself next.  I believe that God didn’t bless me with all of these experiences and this varied knowledge for me to hide my talents under a rock.  Such gifts are meant to be shared, and being a teacher was one of the best gifts that God bestowed on me.  I can truly say that even though I ran from it, famous for telling my mother that “I would NEVER be a teacher”, the times spent in my classroom were some of the happiest days of my professional adult life.  I always laugh at myself in thinking about that sentiment, especially after 23 years of service to a calling that I was born to do—TEACH.

 

Jan

It means engaging, funny, intellectual,
It is 719,
It is like blackberry wine and robust eggplant,
It is sitting on the beach under an umbrella, with a good book, sun shades and music,
It is the bittersweet memory of my mother,
Who taught me perseverance and a lifelong love of words
When she had me for senior English,
My name is Jan,
It means I believe in me and the power to reach for success in whatever I do.  Ultimately, the power of love transcends all.