For this class, we were asked to pick a topic of focus for our work. I am going for an obvious choice: education.

When I was little and asked what I wanted to be when I got older, I would tell people that I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I was going to move far away and make a lot of money. When my college entrance essay asked me the same question I knew that a response of “IDK, but I want money” wouldn’t be good enough. I couldn’t come up with a good answer to the question, so I did what every teenager does and asked my friends. I remember asking a lot of people, but the only answer I remember came from Brittany. She looked at me like I was dumb for asking and simply stated, “I always assumed you’d be a teacher.” I clearly remember laughing at her.

For lack of a better idea, I followed Brittany’s advice and decided to go into teaching. Starting off was rough and I don’t think I did very well. However, the more time that I spent in a classroom with students, the more I got to know them. Here’s the tricky thing about getting to know people, you get invested in them, in their well-being, and you start rooting for them to be successful. After years of this, teaching and education stopped being just a paycheck and it has become my passion. Here I am, 14 years later, 8 years deep into a career that I love.

The great thing about the topic of education is that everyone has some kind of connection to it or feelings about it. The downside is that almost everyone feels like they are an expert on it since they have spent some form of time in a classroom (let me assure you, sitting at a desk as a student doesn’t make you an expert on education).

I don’t know exactly what aspect of education my work will focus on. Maybe it will be about student engagement, maybe teaching strategies, maybe sometimes venting about the state that it’s in. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.