As a high school student, I bumped into my former first grade teacher, Mrs. Ponder. She recognized my mother who was with me in the Ingles grocery store’s checkout line. After exchanging pleasantries and talking about how much I have grown since my elementary school days, she asked “Do you still like science?” Two things were going on inside my head. One, science really has been my favorite subject to study my entire life. Two, my first grade teacher, which I have not seen in ten or so years, remembers my passion for science, even as a five year old child. Reflecting upon this, it really should not be a surprise. I was the kid that knew all the planets in order. I was the kid that could identify trees by their leaves. I was the kid that received a microscope for my eight birthday. Furthermore, I took nine science courses in high school. North Carolina school’s minimum number of science courses …show more content…
I have a lot of pride in my job as a science teacher. The best part about my job is that it matters. I am reminded of a quote from Carl Sagan, “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology”. Every day, I am working hard to make a difference in our society. However, I have been in four different schools systems in the past 3 years. This has been due to statewide science position cuts. Over the past 3 years, I have spent three to five months each year looking for teaching jobs. On top of that, I have taught Earth Science, Physics, Chemistry and Physical Science. I have taught one biology class out of twenty one of the classes I have taught in public schools. I do enjoy teaching the other non-biology classes, and I do quite well at them. However, I my favorite subject to teach is biology. Unfortunately, one does not get to choose what classes they teach in the public school