Hello World!

I am a teacher. But wait! Before you stop reading, I'm not just any teacher. I'm a college senior who teaches on the side. Oh so I must be an education major, right? No, my major is business, which is like the complete opposite of teaching. But wait that's weird... I thought business people were selfish, want money, and make this world an evil place. Teachers are selfless, don't care about money, and make this world a nice place. I'm like two opposite things, in one! I'm yin and yang. Vishnu the creator, and Shiva the destroyer.

So what the heck is going on? Well let me try to explain it all in a paragraph. I entered college thinking I was going to be an investment banker and make $100,000 a year right I graduate. As a freshman I thought, what's the best way to be awesome? Hmm by making lots of money! So I became really intense with getting A's in all my business classes, going to business info sessions, and wanted to join a business frat that was like the holy grail to success. But then while I was at some networking event I had this crazy revelation where all of a sudden, I started thinking everyone there was a selfish asshole. All of my conversations revolved around success, and money, and it freaked me out. I left wondering what the heck I was doing with my life and started to question everything.

A lot of things happened after that, but long story short I became friends with a homeless man who actually changed my life. He opened my eyes to the low-income community in which I lived. For the first time I became aware of the injustices surrounding me and I began to develop a deep connection to this man and my community. I began to wonder how a good hearted man like him was left begging in the streets while selfish assholes at my school were on the path to getting rich. I felt like I could relate to him more than the student sitting next to me in my Intro to Finance class.

So what does any of that have to do with teaching? I'm getting there! During this weirdly dramatic shift, I realized that I loved working with the kids in my community, and so I became a counselor for elementary school kids. Then I learned about a program called Teach for America that would allow me to be a teacher in a low-income school for two years after I graduated. After talking to this recruiter lady about it, I thought, "Hmm... I'm already doing something kind of like that... and I really love what I do ... MAN THAT SOUNDS AWESOME!"

So from that point on, Teach for America became something that I had my sights set on.
It was the perfect way for me to give back to the community while doing something that I love, which is working with kids who have less opportunity than I did growing up. So in order to build the experience that I needed to be accepted into TFA, I began getting involved in different teaching opportunities, and have since then taught in rural Ecuador as an English teacher. I currently teach local high school kids a class on how they can improve their community through bicycling. I also teach homeless and low income adults a class on how they can be successful at retaining a job.

I find teaching to be an extremely challenging, fun, and rewarding experience and am dedicating this blog to serve two purposes:

1. To be a reflection of my own teaching experiences.
2. To be a testament as to why teaching is awesome.

So if you like what you see, please comment! If you don't like what you see, tell me about it! Also if you can find ways that I can be a better teacher, please let me know and I will try to implement your advice the next time I teach. I'll probably even write a blog post about it!

Oh and by the way my views have changed and I no longer think that all business majors are selfish assholes. Business is great, I mean everything is part of business right? I just like teaching better!