Early Years (2011-2019)

Working with children and teens has always been my most favorite joy. I love planning lessons, tuning into students' needs, and reaching those moment when the student appreciates how far they have come. My mission as a Spanish teacher was to teach teenage students how to communicate with people of different of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. I made Spanish class not only about learning the language but also about having a lasting experience with the language. Sometimes I taught the language using Spanish songs that I wrote and sang with them. Some favorite memories are taking my Spanish class on a field trip to a local pupusería, decorating our door for the Christmas decoration contest, and chaperoning our annual sophomore camping trip to the Makah tribal lands on the Washington coast.

​Another course I taught during these years was an 8th-grade drama class that went on for 12 weeks, three times a year. In its 22 iterations, I never taught this class the same way twice. Sometimes, I would put together a 5-week unit in which the class would come together to write, rehearse, and perform an original show. This meant getting class leaders involved and assigning everyone a clear role in the production. Students would come up with a show concept, write the script, and design the set, costumes, sound effects, and programs. Usually, these productions featured student acting. However, our most recent production, "Lost and Flound" (spring 2019) was a puppet show that they performed for the entire 6th grade during the last week of school. I am so proud of this class for their impressive ingenuity and hard work putting this show together with minimal intervention on my part.

​By the 8th year, I became pretty adept at directing a class and making sure everything was balanced and fair and positive. I formed deep relationships with students and families, for which I am exceedingly grateful. My mentor (and former teacher), Barry Linn, guided me as a teacher in countless ways. He and I put on many theatre shows together, including a musical every other year. Unrelated, I also taught math for the first five years, but more on that later.

These early teaching years were the first in which I felt I was part of a village, part of a great chapter in my students' lives. I believe there is nothing sweeter than knowing that a young person trusts you to look out for them and guide them in a personal way, and then actually succeeding in providing that positive experience for them so the relationship deepens. Not to mention, I was able to use summer breaks for travel.

The Challenges

I will not hide the fact that I had challenges in teaching, especially early on. I had to make thousands of real-time decisions to keep the peace and enforce consequences, sometimes with limited information, and these decisions sometimes taught bad lessons and caused unnecessary suffering. I could tell stories of the times I have genuinely tried to do the right thing but have made mistakes, as well as the times I acted without really understanding human behavior, to the regrettable detriment of my students. But I won't dwell on these things (anymore). Dwelling on mistakes, especially when they are emotional and make it tough to forgive yourself, blinds you to the good things that are truer and more abundant than the mistakes.

​But I will say that these challenges were great opportunities to learn and adapt my approach to try to do better next time. They gifted me with the ability to empathize with others who make mistakes and take public scrutiny (for example, authority figures whom I may passionately disagree with but understand they are doing their best). My mistakes have also taught me care more deeply for children who assume the worst in your intentions because they haven't yet learned to see the good in the world. I think these challenges are best expressed by the phoenix we made one year on our camping trip; we made it out of wood and paper and raised it into flame to symbolize the releasing of our struggles as a new phase of life begins.

The First Sabbatical (2019-2020)

During my eighth year of teaching, I began to reflect on all the concentrated effort I had put into my career throughout many years. I had taken every opportunity possible in order to learn and to make the most positive impact on students' lives as I could. Some of it was out of natural passion for working with young people; some of it was out of fear that I had to prove myself in order to keep a stable and successful career. The more I reflected, the more I began to wonder what would happen if I took that same relentless drive and applied it to songwriting, which was a much more natural talent than all of those interpersonal things I had to work so hard at to master (reading and writing, acting, the Spanish language, etc.).

I was more in love with teaching than ever and had the fewest challenges. I was teaching exactly the students I had always wanted to teach. It was perfect. And yet, could I live my whole life without ever taking the risk of doing something else? With careful deliberation, it was decided. I would take a year-long sabbatical and test the waters. I set out to live a creative lifestyle outside of this comfortable teaching career. Above all else, I had to know. I had to take the leap and see what would happen.
What happened during this year? Well...before I can tell that story, you need to know about my summer travel.