Claremont’s Kiva
My career aspirations seemingly shifted and stayed the same all at once. At five, I wanted to be a trash collector. At ten, a teacher–as a couple grandparents had done. At fifteen, a mechanical engineer. And upon graduating high school (and ever since), a teacher once again.
Teaching has always been a part of my life, whether that included tutoring peers in chemistry in middle and high school or becoming a part of Clark University’s Master of Arts in Teaching program. I am at my best when working with people, and the creative and audacious minds of high school students inspire me daily. In my reflections on my continuing journey to becoming a teacher, I was able to locate some old teaching journals from my years as an undergraduate…
From March 3, 2012, after coming back to a tutoring session instead of taking my day off for Clark’s spring break:
They asked me why I was there, and I responded in inquiry. They said it was my Spring Break, and why had I bothered to come—why hadn’t I done something “fun”? […] I said this was fun; in fact, it was most certainly the most fun thing I could think of doing to begin my break. I said that I loved to be here and I hope they felt the same. Based on their smiles, I think they did.
Teaching has always been enjoyable for me and never a chore. I have always aspired to have a career where I am fulfilled by assisting others in seeing how they can fulfill themselves. Even on the “bad” days, there is also always something for me to learn. From January 23, 2013, upon returning to Clark tutoring following my winter vacation:
It was one of those days that I doubted myself. […] I think it was a combination of things. What I was feeling was a little bit of a letdown. […] my classes aren’t doing as much for me. But what was really great was my work with Christian. He didn’t do summer reading, he said, and really didn’t do extensive amounts of reading. [Then] I felt a push. I told him about how writing is like a clothesline, not a spider web, because you have to connect your ideas and not spread them too wide. I told him that writing is a wise investment because you need writing to do anything. I said at one point that to write is to walk onto a prairie; to see a thousand butterflies, each with one, singular idea; that to write an essay you have to challenge yourself to pull the butterflies into a net and make the ideas concise. That was the challenge, and the reward. He responded well to that, to someone getting excited about it, someone connecting to him, being honest with him, showing him the value in something. He wrote.
And to this day, nothing gives me greater joy than seeing a student have an epiphany, seeing a student surprise himself. I hope to make a career out of it.
A little about me: I was born on a farm near Rochester, New York. I spent the first years of my life there, the next few in rural Connecticut, and the majority of my upbringing years—elementary through high school—in Grafton, Massachusetts. Coming to Worcester to attend Clark and major in English with a minor in philosophy was an overwhelmingly positive experience for me. I worked part time for the Admissions office, part time for the Adam Achievers and Upward Bound programs on campus, and participated in myriad extracurricular activities.
Additional Links
- To see a story I wrote for The Worcester Journal about one of my students whom I tutored as an undergraduate, click here.
- To link to our class website, “Let Us See with 9C,” click here.
- Click to see my Resume.
- To link to a video of my Claremont Academy Coffeehouse Performance, see below: