What made you decide to go into teaching?
Teaching is my second career. I stayed home with my kids for 12 years. I had a couple of people encourage me to go into education because they saw how much I liked interacting with kids and helping them learn.

What’s the best part of teaching?

The relationships I get to build with my students. They are in a pivotal place in their lives in high school, and I get to pour into them, and help them see their full potential. AP language class is where I can challenge students who are really craving a challenge. I can expose kids to a way of thinking and writing that sets them up for the rest of their lives.

Seeing them find something they’re good at, that they’ve never tried before, is really exciting.

What’s the most challenging part of teaching?
Knowing that a lot of my students are struggling with so many things, especially at the high school level, and knowing that I can’t fix it for them. But I can be there to listen and support and help guide them in the right direction.

If you could go back in time and give yourself some advice at the start of your career, what would that advice be?
Don’t be afraid to take risks. I think sometimes teachers worry so much about test scores and meeting standards, and those are good things to be concerned about. But I think it’s good to think outside of the box and approach things in new ways that might be engaging to students.

Do you have an example of a risk that you took that paid off?
In my AP class, they are exposed to a type of writing called a definition essay. Last year I thought about how writing comes in all different forms. I decided we were going to do it in a video instead of an essay. So we worked in groups to find a way to define a word, and what it means to them. There’s a commercial for Dodge that uses Paul Harvey’s “God Made a Farmer,” and we used that as a template. Kids chose a word, like family or community, and then they recorded a video with words, images, and music that defined that word. I learned a lot about how to do it in the future, but it was very successful. Students were very engaged.

Do you have any, “it’s weird but it works” teaching strategies?
Classroom management strategy: It goes back to knowing my students and understanding them. Once I have established that relationship with them and gotten to know them, I can address problems. I can pull them off to the side and say that I know they’re capable of better, and that motivates them to improve their behavior or effort in the classroom. Kids will work hard for a teacher who they know believes in them.

What’s one thing about teaching that people (non-teachers) don’t seem to know about teaching?
I think people are very worried about what the future looks like, especially regarding young people today. But if they took one step into my classroom, and spent one class period with my students, they would be so excited about what the future looks like. The kids today are really incredible.

Another thing some people don’t seem to understand is that education doesn’t just take place in the four walls of our classroom. Teachers are engaged in students’ lives in the hallways, in the parking lot, in the community. It’s not just 8-5, we don’t take breaks in the summer. We are constantly trying to find ways to pour into our students, even when we aren’t in the classroom.