The Gist

Besides playing teacher with my stuffed animals when I was 7 years old, it had never crossed my mind growing up that I would actually become a teacher as an adult. Tell me in high school to become a teacher and I would say, “Are you out of your mind?! Yeah, it’s nice they get 2-3 months of vacation in the summer, but teachers are the biggest waste of space. All they do is read from the teacher’s manual, assign work, and make your life miserable. Never!” However after four arduous years of soul searching and analyzing the world around me during college, I’ve learned never say never. (No j/k.) I learned to be the change you wish to see in the world.

During my four years of college as I learned more about society, I grew an apparent passion for social justice and humanity. By the last year of college, I realized the greater role of education and the real role of teachers in society. Time passed and after having many experiences working with children and doing a lot of thinking, a career in teaching ultimately made sense to me. In two years, I dropped my plans to go into medicine and my plans to work for a non-profit, to pursue a career in teaching instead. After some time, I decided to apply to a few alternative one year Master’s programs that also granted a teaching certificate, got in to a couple schools, chose to go back to the University of Michigan for grad school, endured a one intensive school year of graduate work and interning in Detroit, graduated, packed my bags, and moved out of the Midwest to New York City. Now I’m making a new life in New York City and embarking upon an adventure in teaching inner city school kids and learning first hand the politics of the educational system.