Q: When did you start teaching?
A: “ I took over as a long term sub for a STEM teacher doing her middle school STEM classes. So it was woodworking, some modular stuff, things like that. At the end of that year a guy at the high school I graduated from, one of the STEM teachers, was retiring, so I stepped in. I was hired for that role, where I taught primarily at the freshman only campus, but then I also taught our electricity and electronics courses at the high school at the main campus..”
Q: How did you pick your subject?
A: “Oh funny story. The girl I was dating in high school, was going into theater ed, and I’m like, hey, you know what I’m doing, theater. It makes perfect sense. Of course, we broke up immediately before even getting down to college. So that’s how that works. It was actually one of the guys I was doing theater education with, we found the tech ed program at Illinois State. We actually worked with the program to create our own minor.”
Q: Did you ever switch your major in college?
A: “I just kept adding stuff on. So yeah, it started out with just theater education, and then it became theater education and design double major, and then it was adding on the minor. So I actually got to the point, instead of getting rid of things, I actually got a letter from Illinois State at right before I started student teaching, that I had reached the maximum number of credits that I could earn without earning a degree, so I could not enroll in any more classes at ISU until I actually conferred some sort of terminal degree. Thankfully, it was during student teaching, so I just made it all right.”
Q: What about teaching do you love most?
A: “Oh, it’s working with the kids. It’s 1,000,000% seeing the aha moment, the moment when somebody figures something out. But also getting a chance to see students go through four years of life and go from this scared freshman coming into this huge building, no idea really where they want to wind up, and seeing them progress through four years of high school.”
Q: Favorite memory from teaching?
A: “ had a former student that was a TA for me, took some of my classes and did some theater for me as well, and she asked me to do a photo shoot for her daughter when her daughter was born. And actually I’m going to the wedding of two students that I got. They met when I cast them doing the freshman play. So they met then, and now they’re getting married this weekend. So those are the two big ones, you know? Getting a chance to photograph student weddings and be at a student wedding, and then photograph some student’s babies, doing the infant photography that was, that was always a really nice, fulfilling and kind of validating activity.”
Q: What made you pick Prospect?
A: “So prospect is my six or seventh school district that I’ve worked with through my educational career between curricular teaching and co curricular theater. I wanted to move to a larger district and I really wanted to be in a district where I could do both theater and teaching in the same building. It was something I hadn’t been able to do for over a decade. So to get the opportunity to advance my career, get to a larger district, consolidate things together. The location sucks for me, no doubt about it, but seeing that opportunity and that career trajectory was a big reason.”
