Teacher Spotlight

Does anyone really know what they want to be when they grow up? The childhood dreams have always existed and been in the back of the mind but does anyone really commit to those? When choosing, is it about money or what we enjoy doing? These teachers made their choice and they will be talking about their process of choosing and what they think of their choice so far. By answering these questions in order...

1. What did you want to be when you grew up?

2.What made you want to be a teacher?

3. Do you think you are the type of teacher you wanted to be when you started?

1. “My plan was to go play college football and then use that to become a college football coach.”

2. “My grandfather passed away and really made me reanalyze coaching and the people who coach as a career their life style. The moving around and the hours they put in and how little time they spend with family. It kind of made me realize as much as I love football, I love family more. I left coaching and I worked in the banking industry and everything but I was like, ‘I’m miserable and I wanna go pursue what I love,’ which was always teaching.

3. “In high school I had my history and government teacher which was a gentleman named Mr. Sulivan and they were both loud and boisterous and energetic teachers and I loved that about their classes. So for me, I always felt like that’s the kind of teacher I want to be. I don’t want to teach math so much as to make a fun class that happens to teach math.”

1. “I wanted to be a nurse so I could make a lot of money”

2. “During my clinical rotations in graduate school for athletic training I always felt like something was missing. Until I was placed at a high school that had a sports medicine class where I would volunteer to assist the instructor with her lessons. Soon after I was teaching most of the lessons and supporting the students as if it was my own class”

3. “I wanted to create a space where students wanted to be. This year I’ve definitely focused more on the fundamentals of a successful classroom and have had a lot of push back from students, but I don’t regret this approach because I’ve found that it is much better for my sanity.”

1. “I didn’t think I wanted to teach, in my sophomore year like a career project… I did school psychologist but you have to get your masters… and then I thought about a counselor. Like being a highschool counselor because I thought high school was afun age and a fun

2. “I was meeting with a counselor in college…. She was advising me at that time, “that it’s really tough to get into counseling at that point there’s a lot of budget cuts and they cut counselors a lot.” She was like “you should really think about teaching”. because if you start as a teacher you can always become a counselor later... so I took like ED 101 just like intro to teaching and I really liked it but I liked being a student I liked learning. So being a teacher is kind of like being a student all the time.”

3.” I was kind of the traditional student where i linked to sit and get meaning where you sit you listen to a lecture an interesting lecturer you take notes or you a do reading and questions it’s kind of more like individualized I think in my AP US class I am more traditional in the way that I teach that, but in an ideal world I think of like Mr.Hardy but it’s hard. He puts on a show he is so energetic and so enthusiastic and he’s funny and he’s entertaining”

By: Daniela Stuhlert, Staff Reporter