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Can you tell us about yourself? 

 "Hi, my name is Teresa Bowman. I am a teacher at Holman in a Midwestern state. I am a 1st grade teacher and I have been here for 1 year but I have taught in my current district for 27."

Why did you start a career in education?

"I started in education because that's what I wanted to be when I was really little. I taught my sister how to read before she went to kindergarten. I just thought that was really cool and I have continued to do that my whole career."

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

"If I could have done any other job besides be a classroom teacher, I think I would have been a daycare provider so that I could help students, help children get a good start as their first educator in a setting outside of their home."

How are kids different now than 30 years ago?

"30 years ago when I started teaching, students didn't appear to be quite so street smart. They were respectful of teachers and parents had a different respect for teachers than they do now. Students saw teachers as an authoritative figure that they were responsible to."

How is teaching different now than 30 years ago?

"Education is different because 30 years ago it was all paper, pencil and we did lots of whole language teaching and now I see things moving back towards the pendulum of phonics based reading with a lot of technology being integrated in to the curriculum to get our children career and college ready for the future."

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

"Somebody going into education right now, I would ask them to reflect greatly on are you flexible, are you able to switch gears quickly when you see something is not working correctly and do you have the patience to truly spend 6 hours a day in a classroom with a struggling learner because that's what we are getting. In the past, those students would be removed from our rooms and now they are staying in our classrooms, even though they are struggling. Make sure you have the skills and the ability to deal with that before you become a teacher."

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

"One thing I would change for students in my classroom would be class size because I think our classes are too large and some of our students get lost in the shuffle. Thank you."