Teacher Profiles

BEN HO

When you were in college, what were you studying?

I was studying Spanish, and my concentration was linguistics.

Did you have a career in language in mind?

I was deciding between a couple of different careers, possibly translation, teaching, diplomatic work, or writing in general.

Tell me about how you got interested in language specifically.

It had to do with the fact that English wasn’t my first language. I spoke Cantonese during my childhood and had to learn English after that. When I started learning Spanish, I was a freshman in high school, and I realized it’s a beautiful language and I just found something really neat in the ability to express myself and communicate in a whole different way with different words and different sounds. That’s the coolest aspect of language to me, and I continued with that for the rest of my college career.

How many languages do you know?

I know about seven or eight all at varying levels of proficiency.

What was the hardest language for you to learn?

German was difficult. The grammar and pronunciation are difficult, but also I think it’s a different way of expressing yourself in German; it’s a completely different mentality.

Did you have a different job before you became a teacher?

I worked as a lot of things before I became a teacher, honestly. When I was an undergraduate I worked for the library at my school, I worked for the newspaper of my hometown, I was a tutor, I did volunteer work, and then after graduating I worked for a year at Best Buy.

How did all of those jobs differ from what you do now?

Well, let’s look at Best Buy. That’s probably the most interesting vantage point of comparison. It’s completely different because I felt that as a retail employee I had very little freedom and I had very little creativity. You had a routine to follow, which isn’t to say that we don’t have a routine to follow here either, but here I’m able to create my lessons and create PowerPoints and use materials that I want, and exclude things that I don’t want to use. At Best Buy you were given your orders and the environment was really different. Working in retail your emphasis is on selling and I’m just someone who’s not into that mindset. That’s just not who I am. And so I was miserable most of the time there.

HEATHER SADLON

What did you study in college?

I studied mechanical engineering undergraduate and aerospace in my graduate school.

What kind of career did you have in mind at that time?

I wanted to be an astronaut since when I was in junior high, and that’s what pushed me into those studies. Later I knew that I wanted to work in the aerospace industry.

How did you become interested in engineering?

One of the astronauts on the Challenger disaster went to my school. I was in the sixth grade when that happened, and it piqued my interest kind of in a weird way. My dad was an engineer—not an aerospace engineer, a mechanical engineer—so I just became very interested in airplanes, space travel, and things like that, all starting in sixth or seventh grade.

Did you always consider yourself a science or math person?

No, and that’s what’s weird. Honestly, I always liked history the best in school, but I couldn’t see myself in it. I got my mind latched onto engineering very early, and I never really considered history as a career, or really anything else at all.

How did that career differ from what you do now?

To be a good engineer, you have to have a slightly different brain than I have. You know, you have to be a good problem solver, but it’s hard to describe. To do well at anything you have to have a passion for what you’re doing, and I think part of it is the technical knowledge required to be a good engineer, combined with a really unique interest in what you’re doing, and I think I was mediocre at the technical stuff and my interest was mediocre as well. All of those put together made it not a very interesting or fun experience for me on a day-to-day basis. I could see people around me doing it, being very interested and very good at it and I just kind of compared myself to them and I said that this is probably not what I should be doing.

Did you learn any notable skills from that job?

I think that being adaptable is a really good skill that I learned because I had to adapt really quickly when I went to work at Lockheed Martin. I worked there for eight years after getting my graduate degree, and I knew pretty early on that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do within the company, so I ended up moving all around the company and trying very different roles and taking different courses to try to fit myself into different roles to try to find where I fit.

STEVE HENDERSON

What made you decide to pursue a teaching career?

When I was in college, I found myself working at a bunch of youth sports camps and I decided that I wanted to work with kids. I thought I might have a future with working with them.

Did you have any other jobs besides teaching?

After I left school I found myself working in retail managing for a while. I managed an athletic club for a while. So, I have some experience working in business and that’s when I decided that education is where I wanted to be. I got my master’s degree and teaching credentials all while I figured out that that was where I wanted to be. Then, I ended up becoming a teacher.

How did you end up working in commercial advertising?

I was approached by an agent actually for my kids. So I brought my kids to the agency and at the time, one of the people at the agency said, ‘Hey, maybe you should try this.’ I was kind of surprised that they said this, but I went ahead and got signed up too with the agency. It’s kind of took off from there. I started getting commercial print jobs and the occasional casting for a TV commercial. It’s all local. There’s some casting houses in San Francisco. I actually ended up switching agents, which worked out pretty well. It’s all agency-based and if the company wants someone who looks like you to represent them. I’ll go to castings and sometimes I get booked directly. It’s mostly in the summer so there’s very little interference with work. It’s another way to make money, you know, another funding stream. A little college money for the kids.

Have you taken anything from your other jobs that you’ve used in your teaching job?

Yes, well for the past 15 years I’ve done a consulting job with a company called Positive Coaching Alliances. So, I do outside coaching for youth sports organizations, and that’s really helped with honing my speaking skills, working with groups of people, and kind of motivational speaking work. I really enjoy the relationships I built in that way. So, I think that anywhere from business management to on-camera stuff to coaching with the Positive Coaching Alliance, all of that helps me refine and define who I am and to keep working on getting better as a teacher.

WILL COLGLAZIER

When you went to college, did you know that you wanted to become a teacher?

No, not at all. Not in undergraduate for sure.

What career path were you thinking of pursuing in college?

My older sister was in consulting, like economic consulting … I majored in economics and history. I thought economics was the road. I was mainly just following in my sister’s footsteps, which is kind of funny because I definitely did not like the concept of the “corporate field,” but I thought that was what I was supposed to do.

What made you want to become a teacher?

Well, first off, I thought I was going to go into some sort of Foreign Service, like work for an embassy or live abroad. So, in that vein, I knew that China was going to an integral part of modern U.S. relations, so I was thinking to learn the Chinese language and set myself apart from the other candidates. I studied the Chinese language. I took classes after I graduated college at a local community college and then I traveled to China. I was going to be there for like a year, learn the language and the culture, but just after about a week there, the culture shock combined with a quarter-life crisis, I basically realized that it wasn’t what I wanted. So, rather than waste a year of my life after I realized that it’s not what I wanted, I decided to just cut my losses. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought about what I really wanted while I was in this dorm room in Chengdu, China. I decided I wanted to be a teacher … I liked history, so once I never got that economic consulting job, I had that tutoring job. I thought the Foreign Service, but that didn’t work. I was like, stop fighting it, and do what you’re good [at]. Do what you like. I liked history, so I applied to graduate school and I got accepted into Stanford.

What’s the best part about being a teacher?

Oh, the summers. Just kidding. I mean, I get to be passionate about the knowledge and different facets of history, but I’m not stuck in a cubical where I’m just inside my own head or talking to people via email. I get to put on five shows a day and interact with hundreds of people every day. I think it makes for fast days.