I got into teaching because I lied on my resume.
Not to get one up on anyone. But because I didn’t really have another choice. My father died at the start of sixth grade. My mother died at the end of eighth. My reason for sharing this isn’t to garner sympathy, but to show that my mind wasn’t in a good place from sixth grade to tenth grade. Wrong crowds, suspensions, a mind that was twisted up and didn't know how to build anything, I only knew how to destroy. I still cant tell you exactly how I turned it around. People ask me that a lot. All I can say is that when I was really about to go left, I went right.
By senior year in high school I was doing better, but now it was time to apply to college and I had almost nothing to put on a resume. So I made stuff up. A CPR certification I never had. Four years of church volunteering that was really four hours. It got me in, and it also made me feel guilty enough that when a woman handed me a flyer my first week on campus, asking for volunteers to help elementary kids with homework, I took it as my shot to actually feel like a good person and not just say it. I was 17.
I’ve worked in schools every year since.
Living in China taught me about habits.
After my master's, my college president connected me with an international school in China. I didn't know a word of Mandarin. I moved anyway. I spent two years teaching, then three managing curriculum and business development for the school. That's where everything shifted for me. I watched a culture that treated education as a value, not a task, and I started to understand that the habits a child practices at home often shape their education more than anything that happens at school. Not always. But more than most people think.
Eventually, I landed a teaching job in Boston. And that's where the next piece clicked. I started ro pay attention to kids and their parents carry the same limiting beliefs. “I'm not a good reader. I'm bad at math.” Beliefs that become self-fulfilling, because if you don't think something about yourself can change, you'll never let it.
That led me to Michigan State for my PhD in Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education, which fit exactly what I was already doing in my head.
I gained the understanding that kids need independence. Independence comes from habits. Habits don't form without belief. You can't build a habit on top of a belief that's already telling a kid they can't do something. That's the framework I use with every family now.
Beliefs, Habits, Independence.