– How did you start teaching at Wando: 

“I actually lived abroad, I lived in China. I was teaching there and then felt like it was time to come back from China, I wanted to move back to the states and my dad lived down here and my mom lived just outside of Philadelphia and so I just applied to both places and Wando was the first to contact me that I was really interested in so I drove down and interviewed and I really liked it.”

– How did you start teaching in China and can you describe what that was like:

“I went to China to teach, I was long term subbing in the U.S. before that, I was a December graduate of 2011, so that spring I was doing some long term subbing and then it got to be March of 2012 and I started panicking to find a job for the next school year, back in the days when it was hard to get a teaching job and they weren’t begging you to have a teaching job. I was afraid because up north teaching jobs are a little harder to get to, they are a little better paying than down here, and they have unions. I was panicking about not being able to have a job so one of my professors was in contact with this program in China so she had mentioned something to a group of us and I applied mid March and was accepted the next week. Within two weeks I told my mom I was applying, got in and my mom thought I was lying until like July when I started packing. I taught English as a foregin language and went to Beijing and got what’s called TEFL Certified, teaching English as a foregin language. I taught English the first year, then I started doing freelance work with an international school. I would pop in, almost like a professor, and would teach AP U.S. History. Then they ended up hiring me and I was at that school for two and a half years. I built up their AP Program for all of their courses and was the head foregin teacher and did a lot of hiring for foregin teachers. It was cool, it was as much work as it is here, just a different kind of work. I was able to go whatever direction I wanted, there wasn’t state requirements like there are here.”

– Why did you choose to become a teacher: 

“I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a teacher, I was like seven years old and my mom got me a chalkboard in my room and I used to line up my stuffed animals and teach to my stuffed animals. I always wanted to be a teacher and I have no idea why. I always wanted to teach whatever grade level I was in. I remember my mom telling me a story of when I was in second grade and told her I really wanted to be a second grade teacher when I grew up, and she said ‘you don’t want to teach anything past that?’ and I said ‘I can’t do third grade math yet so I can’t be a third grade teacher’. I always wanted to be a teacher, I didn’t know what subject I wanted to teach until high school though. My AP U.S. History teacher was amazing. I was up in the air between social studies and English my senior year of high school and I was convinced to go the history route because of his teaching.”