“I got extremely lucky in working with two people during my first couple of years that I had a great relationship with. We had the same attitude towards teaching. So I think, finding one or two people who had that same attitude, especially as a new teacher, to guide me. I would not be where I am if it wasn't for those people.”
“It was important for me to have one or two people who could literally sit down with me and say: ‘What's happening in your classroom? Here's how I would handle it. Let's role play. You're going to be the student. I'm going to be the teacher now. So tell me what she said. Now, here's how I would reply to that.’ And just really taking the time to script it out almost with me.”
“There's one teacher who isn't even at the school anymore. He's (…) probably twenty or twenty-five years older than me. Became sort of a mentor figure to me. And during my worst year, which was after Covid, I had one class period that could get to me (…) with frustration. And we had the same lunch. So every lunch I would talk to him (….) It was right after that period. I would go over and I'd be like, ‘This happened today. What do I do?’ And he kind of trained me to have this personality that was able to not get emotional during a confrontation with a kid, to not break down, to essentially learn to to get away from that sensitivity. And now, if a kid gives me sass, I give it back, and it becomes actually a great aspect of our relationship where you almost meet them on their level (…) We play disc golf now every Sunday, and I still bring him things that I'm dealing with.”