Inspired to Educate

Who inspired you to become an educator?

I was contacted by Nina at Inspired to Educate to share their website on my little blog.   Inspired to Educate is a program designed to recognize and praise educators and the people who inspired them. Each month they will award $2,000 to someone who shares their story -- $1,000 to the person for their professional development and $1,000 for their educational institution.

Share your story at Inspired2Educate for the chance to win $2000! 

I have two teachers that inspired me from high school.  The first one was my AP Chemistry teacher, Marsha Johnson.  She made chemistry so fun that I majored in it in college for my first semester.  (I bet you can guess what I changed it to after chemistry.)

Now let me tell you, this class was HARD!  She had a way of teaching that made it fun and truly come alive.  She also built strong relationships with all of her students.  We all felt safe to try in our experiments and make mistakes.  After all...

Mrs. Johnson also provided us with amazing opportunities.  Our AP Chemistry class was accepted to work at NASA thanks to her application to help us get there.

While at NASA we built a hydrodynamic focusing bioreacter.

Basically, we grew cell cultures in the bioreacter and then took it on the plane to fly at 0 gravity.  Being at 0 gravity made us float, as well as the cells in the bioracter.  We could then extract them.  The cells were used for cancer research.

(I am on the left and my friend, Laura, is on the right.)

I have many, many fond memories of Marsha Johnson because she did WHATEVER it took to help us learn and provided us with amazing opportunities to learn.  She inspires me to do these things in my kindergarten classroom.

Thank you Marsha Johnson!

My other inspiration was my French teacher, Isabelle Canard.  Mrs. Canard is the reason I love to travel and have done many international mission trips to serve others in need.  I always wanted to learn French and was so excited to be in Mrs. Canard's French class for three years.  She made learning French a wonderful experience.  Looking back, I can see her commitment to teaching and to the students in her classroom.  Because of her commitment, I was inspired by her to not only learn French, but to also see there is more to the world than Texas.  I loved to hear her stories of going to France and living there.  

Mrs. Canard's excellent instruction to teach me French gave me confidence to go to France in 2003 on a mission trip to work in Marseilles remodeling a youth center.

The French I learned form Mrs. Canard helped me so much to communicate with locals in Marseilles.   I was also blessed to go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower.  I had dreamed of doing this for years.  

This started a strong desire to see the world and serve others.  I worked at an orphanage in Peru in 2014.

I also went on a Medical Mission to Zambia in 2015.  I worked in children's ministry.

I have incredibly wonderful memories of Mrs. Canard and her commitment to teaching and her students  She has inspired me to do these things as well.  

Thank you Isabelle Canard!

One more thing about Mrs. Canard is that her daughter, Gabby, student taught under me last year in kindergarten!  It was so awesome to teach Mrs. Canard's daughter.  She did an incredible job!

(Mrs. Canard and her daughter, Gabby)

Don't forget to share your story at Inspired to Educate!