Heidie Dunn was looking back at old photos showing her students what she did before she started teaching. Some of her students asked why she left and became a teacher, after they asked she just smiled and said, “it’s because you guys are great.”
A large amount of staff at MCHS did something before becoming a teacher. Some were journalists, others did something else like aerial shows, or computer engineering.
“It was an aerial act. It feels like a total other lifetime,” Heidie Dunn, an AP English teacher and the AVID coordinator at MCHS says. “Anyways this aerial act was in Las Vegas, and so I did that for 18 months after college.”
There are so many teachers that had ‘cooler’ jobs before teaching, but left that job because it just didn’t fit their current lifestyle, or it was something they didn’t want to do for the rest of their lives.
“I was a journalist in the city of Chicago,” John Aubert, a College and Career Writing teacher and the advisor of the Warrior Weekly says, “as well as a freelancer in advertising writing. I wrote some cool stories, interviewed some fun bands and wrote some catchy ads that still play on the radio today!”
Not all teachers had a different job, some teachers have always wanted to teach.
“I was a design engineer, I was primarily responsible for designing the physical design of those microchips,” Eric Jones, a science teacher, says. “Now this is work that would be done on a computer, because it’s something that fits inside your phone, so that’s clearly a different scale. I did that for many years, and then I did project management at the end of that time, where I would help customers see their projects through from start to finish.”
For some, it was more of an unexpected change, but unexpected things could also become something they’d eventually enjoy.
“I was a research scientist for 16 years, and that’s what I wanted to do,” Steven Levon, a science teacher says. “I grew up when the HIV infection first started and I was really interested in doing lab work, reading articles, and seeing how people were suffering. It was just something that I wanted to be a part of and research.”
Other teachers were influenced by teachers they had growing up and other people around them that made them want to pursue this career path.
“When I got to SIU I was able to meet a guy by the name of James Watson who really influenced me into going into research,” says Levon, “and just an incredible guy. My courses were tough. I had to take chemistry and physics and in addition to Microbiology and Molecular Biology classes. But I loved the challenge.”
As teachers have gone through their careers at MCHS they have found joy in helping students, and helping them achieve their dreams.
“It wasn’t exactly something that I chose to do,” Levon says, “but when I got into it, it’s kind of funny, my daughter’s prognosis was she wasn’t going to live past four years old, but she wound up living to be 14. So I was here for 14 years, I wound up really loving what I do. I mean, I know I’m a goof, but I enjoy what I do. It’s fun interacting with you guys and I just feel like I make an impact here.”
Teachers have found a new love for teaching students through their craft that they have perfected what they do over many years.
“I went here myself and I knew they were looking for a French teacher,” Andy Hiller, a French teacher says. “I was in France, and I wanted to stay, but I couldn’t. I was running out of money, and so I would have had to have waited four months out of paycheck and I couldn’t do that. I came back and I thought, I almost finished student teaching, so I might as well just take one class. I worked in a Catholic high school at the same time. Then I taught middle school for four years, and now I’m here.”
At the end of the day Dunn and many other teachers were leaving the school discussing their past careers. Even though they loved what they did before becoming a teacher they are just as happy, if not more, in their current positions.