“I’ve Got my Mind on my $ and $ on my Mind”

After a few years in California, I realized that I was getting paid less than some of my co-workers that didn’t have a Master’s Degree. Upon further research, I discovered that it was because I had fewer credits than everyone else because I earned my teaching credential at the same time that I earned my Bachelor’s Degree. Apparently in CA, you get your Bachelor’s Degree and then you go back to school to get your teaching credential, thus earning more credits. In light of this new information, I began looking into how many credits I would need to put me at the end of the pay scale - 22 credits.

So, there I was, at a point in my career after 8 years of teaching, where I was feeling burned out from all of the work I was doing to teach three different classes - AP Biology alone took up 60% of my work load and I only taught 1 class out of 5 classes daily! It was an insane amount of work for little appreciation or extra pay. So I got the crazy idea that it was time to make a change and earn the money I deserved for the work the district was getting out of me. I decided to go back to school and get a second Master’s Degree.

In the Fall of 2012, I enrolled at Cal Poly Pomona to earn my second Master’s Degree in Educational Multimedia. Crazy, I know, especially since I only needed to complete half of the program to earn the 22 credits. However, this is all happening at a time when technology is infiltrating classrooms. The future of education will embrace digital textbooks, online classes, class sets of laptops or iPads and with a Master’s Degree in Biology Curriculum and Instruction AND in Educational Multimedia, I am setting myself up for, what will be, a much needed career in developing digital curriculum - my escape plan for if and when I get burned out and want to quit teaching.

Big Dreamin'

As a young child I was fortunate enough to know my life direction, I wanted to be a teacher. During playtime I would force my sisters to play school and I was always the teacher.  I would even give them actual assignments and I would grade them. As I got older, I realized that I needed to decide whether or not I wanted to be an elementary or secondary school teacher, and when I took biology with Mr. Cardwell at Northview High School in Grand Rapids, MI, my destiny slapped me in the face. I remember going home one day and telling my mom that I was going to be a high school biology teacher. When she asked why, I replied that I loved the curriculum and I wanted others to love it just as much as I did.

In 2003, I graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI with a secondary education Biology degree.  My first job was as an adjunct professor at Montcalm Community College in Sidney, MI, where I was hired to teach one introductory biology class because the instructor quit one week before classes started. I ended up staying for two years and developing curriculum for the online biology course, but I had to move on because as an adjunct you don’t get health benefits. So, I wake up one morning and announced to my mom that I was moving to Florida to teach and get a Master’s Degree.  

I was offered a teaching job at Brandon High School in Brandon, FL and I applied to the University of South Florida (USF- Go Bulls!) in Tampa to earn a M. Ed. in Science Education: Biology Curriculum and Instruction. After four years of teaching I had finally found my passion, writing and developing curriculum - I loved to write it and teach it I but hated grading it! I hated that I was forced to use a textbook that was at a higher reading level than almost all of my students, I hated that I was required to attend meetings, fill in paper work, coach, etc. I just wanted to write curriculum and teach.

Upon graduation from USF, I move to California to marry my long time boyfriend. I was offered a job at Bonita High School in La Verne, CA. I was given the opportunity to teach AP Biology, which I was excited about because it reminded me of my days teaching at Montcalm Community College. The only downside was that I would end up teaching three different courses: Regular Biology, Honors Biology, and AP Biology.  Don’t get me wrong, I love biology and I love writing curriculum, but teaching it on three different levels is A LOT more work than what most teachers are expected to do for the same pay!