What was the moment you knew that you wanted to be a teacher?
“I got my bachelors degree in history and my master’s degree in social studies. I was not intending to be a teacher after that. I did not enjoy my student teaching experience and I thought that this was not for me. I decided to be a secretary, and I was a secretary for a judge for about a year and was kind of bored,” department chair and history teacher Susan King said. “Then I got called into vote and our polling place was in a high school. I walked into the high school and they were still having classes, and I walked by some of the classes and heard some of the teachers and I saw what was going on and got really excited. I went to vote and hung out outside one of the classrooms for a while. But I really enjoyed what I was hearing and it was an English class, not a social studies class. That’s when I remembered being in the parking lot and driving home going, ‘Oh no, I made a terrible mistake. I really need to go and do something and see if I can get back into teaching’.”
Why did you choose this subject?
“I have always been interested in history. I have always been interested in American history in particular and the process and how America has changed and how it’s still changing,” King said. “The whole process is a fascinating story and the progression of America and sometimes the regression of America.”
What do you enjoy about teaching high school students?
“High school is so much more interesting than the other levels. I really enjoy the content. The reason I even got the teaching degree in the first place was that enjoyed the content,“ King said. “You can go much deeper into social studies content and government content in high school than you can in the middle or elementary grade. Somewhere along the way it changed into, ’Yes, I love the content, but I also love the students in the class’.”
Tell me about your favorite day of teaching.
“It was when I was about to go out for maternity leave. It was my last day. I had only been at Starr’s Mill for I guess a year or year and a half. I had such wonderful, sweet, loving kids and they knew that it was my last day,” King said. “On my last day they all wrote a thank you note and a poster card and they put all the private jokes from the class in there. That day was sweet and special. It was like I was going to miss these kids so much, and now it’s time for me to figure out doing school kids and personal home kids.”
Why not a different career?
“I know I could do other things, but it’s just so much energy in this job. Even though that I have been teaching the same thing for the last several years, because of the kids, in class everyday is different. I never feel like I’m redoing stuff,” King said. “Because the audience is different, the personalities are new, and it’s fresh. It’s an invigorating job that I cannot imagine that you could get elsewhere. I feed off this job more than anything that I can think of.”
What was the moment you knew that you wanted to be a teacher?
“I had always been involved in teaching in some shape or form. I had started out when I was 15 teaching swimming lessons. Then even in the Army, I was teaching customers to use systems. While I was at home I taught fitness lessons,” Diane Ruane said. “I was considering going back into the workforce. I had read through something called Strengthsfinder which confirmed that teaching was not just something I was doing but matched my skill sets.”
Why did you choose this subject?
“I was a history and law double major. I had always loved history. I used to read all the time and checked out biographies,” Ruane said. “History was always a big passion of mine. I grew up in the D.C area, and so I knew about the political establishment.”
What do you enjoy about teaching high school students?
“I had small kids at the time, and I really enjoyed my small children. I realized through teaching, that little kids are a whole lot different animal teaching them,” Ruane said. “I wanted to teach a little bit different level of history and government. I enjoy teaching students who are on the cusp of adulthood and discussing more real world events.”
Tell me about your favorite day of teaching.
“Personal moments with students who come back to see me. I keep all of their letters they send me,” Ruane said. “I’m honored by that because they don’t have to come see me. So it’s very honoring.”
Why not a different career?
“Going to law school without family support in the area did not seem to be something that could happen. I really found that I loved teaching more than I loved anything else. “