Every person reaches points in their life where they must choose. One of the most important life-altering decisions a person will ever make is graduating high school and deciding on a career path. All the teachers here at HAHS have decided to become teachers at one point or another, and I decided to ask them about their journey.
Mrs. Herman comes from a family of teachers and claims that “teaching is in [her] blood.” All six of her siblings are either teachers or in a math-oriented field. Her favorite part about teaching is interacting with the students, however, her least favorite part is the feeling of always having more to complete and never being done. Hamburg has employed Mrs. Herman for 27 years out of her 31 teaching years. She remarks that she still has a long way to go and that “this is a challenging job and along the way, there are enough high points that keep me wanting to meet the challenge.”
One door down from Mrs. Herman, Mr. Gaul has been teaching for 13 years and enjoys all the student’s “aha moments.” The reason Mr. Gaul wanted to become a teacher was his goal to “effect change in the next generation” coupled with his college counselor telling him to pursue it and not to give up. Both Mr. Kline and Mr. Gaul dislike the hefty amount of paperwork that comes with the job but love it nonetheless. Coming into the career Mr. Gaul did not expect how much of an emotional toll it would take on him, although he says, “teaching is one of the most rewarding professions in the world it is also one of the toughest. I would not change anything for the world.”
Also in the math hallway, Mrs. Geske remembers joining the Hamburg crew in August of 2015. She was inspired to become a teacher because of her fourth-grade teacher at Wilson. She remembers him as “a bit of a weirdo,” but he made class engaging and enjoyable. This teacher is the reason why Mrs. Geske actively tries to engage in fun projects and crafts in the classroom. Some personal teaching goals of hers are to get better every year, create better lesson plans, and try a more hands-off approach to learning and let kids discover the material.
In the gym, Ms. Kelly has been teaching for 28 years and initially was interested in the career because she always loved working with kids and wanted to be home with her family as much as possible. The teaching career has allowed her to synch up her schedule with her children. COVID, however, has added a lot of stress in extra emails, meetings, and evaluations on top of the curriculum that already needs to be rewritten and reworked. Nonetheless, Ms. Kelly remains steadfast in her love of teaching.
Astronomy, physics, and computer science teacher Mr. Brown has been teaching at Hamburg for ten years. He was inspired to teach by seeing how his teachers helped people. Once he fell in love with his Major in Physics and Astronomy, he was even more excited to spread that to teens. One thing that surprised Mr. Brown was how receptive and friendly the students at Hamburg are especially when it comes to the upper sciences. Although he does not particularly prefer to wake up so “insanely early.” He enjoys all the projects he and the students get to partake in. His goal as a teacher is to “inspir[e] the passion for students to continue sciences outside of high school.”
All people have influences on others, and it seems that teachers create future teachers. No doubt the teachers here at Hamburg have changed the student body’s lives, and we will forever be grateful for our amazing teachers.
