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Can you tell us about yourself? 

"I am Irene Tegrar I worked at Brent Elementary in the Little Elm School District. I teach special education and inclusion, which means I sit in the classrooms and I, um, help the kids there. I, um, my school location is in Little Elm, Texas and I was there for, I'd been there for 11 years."

Why did you start a career in education?

"I started a career in education because I enjoy teaching kids. I've worked with kids in girl Scouts and, um, I also tutored when I was in high school and I just really liked it."

If you could have any other job what would it be and why?

Um, if I could have any other job, probably, um, bookkeeping and accounting. Um, I did that while my kids were at in school and then I, it was just nice, uh, working with kids, my own kids, um, whenever and then doing something completely different to make money, which was the bookkeeping and the accounting."

How are kids and teaching different now than 30 years ago?

"Oh, are kids different now than 30 years ago? This is a good question because I actually did teach 30 years ago and teaching and children have changed in many ways. Um, with, with the internet, there is so much more knowledge out there and there's always a feeling when you're teaching them that there's more you could be doing. And for the kids there's sort of a feeling, I think 30 years ago they didn't feel as entitled and their parents didn't have, um, they had high expectations, but they felt like they were learning. I don't think they were as critical. And I think the kids, I've had kids, um, kind of act a little bit snippy and say that, you know, they know what's best for themselves. And I've had parents, uh, support the kids in those statements, um, as in their disrespect toward teachers. So I think kids were more respectful 30 years ago. I think, um, kids learning, I think they have more opportunities to learn now and there's a variety of what we're much more differentiated now than we were 30 years ago. So that's a good thing."

What would you tell someone who wants to become a teacher?

What would you tell somebody right now that is thinking about being coming a teacher? You've got to really want it. Um, if you're just doing it to have the summers off, if you're just doing it because you're making more money as a teacher, then maybe you working somewhere else. Um, uh, it's, it's not, you really have, there's so many hours and so much stress and so much emotional, um, expense that you have that if you don't really, really love it, you're, you're not going to be a good teacher. And, um, you're not gonna want to learn to be a good teacher and you're not going to want, you're just going to put in the time and, uh, it's just, it's not good. Please, please find something else that you really wanted to instead."

What is one thing you would change to help kids learn better?

"What is one you would change to help kids learn better? Um, I think I would, one of the things is I would change the way we do curriculum in our district. I would actually have a curriculum that would be given for, to every teacher, and then the teachers could actually enrich it, but there wouldn't be, um, such variance from grade to grade or school to school. And the curriculum would be standards based, which it, our curriculum is standards-based, but it would be, um, more unified. And that's it. Thank you. Bye."