“I was a newcomer teacher. I taught high school students who were just coming to this country and learning English. But it was much more than teaching them English. It was creating a community of belongingness...
“I’m a senior at Texas A&M, studying animation. That’s my stuff. I like drawing and writing. As a kid, you’re always doodling. For me, it never really stopped. “I didn’t take it seriously until my freshman...
“I’m from Louisiana, north of New Orleans. My husband works in the plants as a crane and forklift operator, welder and whatever else they need him to do. “He’s been traveling for work for years. When...
“I taught kindergarten and first grade for 30 years. I miss the children. But I don’t miss the school system. After 30 years, the system had changed so much. It was no longer fun to go...
“I volunteered to do some teaching in a juvenile detention center in Hemphill County one summer. That was a real eye-opener, going behind locked doors to work with those kids. The youngest was 11 or 12...
“When I started helping out early last school year, there was this little boy who was really struggling to read. He would read really slow. But we worked with him throughout the year. So by the...
“My husband asked me the other day, ‘At what point did you know that you wanted to be a teacher?’ I can’t remember any defining moment. It just seems like that’s all I ever wanted to...
“I think I was in my third year of teaching at Travis Elementary. My sister also was teaching there. We had a great partnership. I taught reading and writing, and she taught math and science. “One...
“I walked into a store and an employee asked, ‘Are you Miss Swamp?’ I froze like a deer in headlights and said, ‘Yes, but no one has called me that in almost 40 years.’ She said,...
“I knew that I wanted to become a special education teacher. But life throws you curves sometimes. I graduated high school six months pregnant with my daughter, and I got married right away. Later on, I...
