WOODBURY – Whenever you bump into your teacher at the grocery store or restaurant, you suddenly remember how they have an entire life outside of their classroom. Whenever you hear them talk about their life before teaching, you wonder what type of person they were and how they got here.
When asked how they knew they wanted to be teachers, many Nonnewaug staff members said that they originally had no plans to be a teacher.
“I think when I was a senior in college, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do something with my degree in biology,” says science teacher Joshua Kornblut. “Over winter break that year, I was sitting down with my cousin who is a teacher, and he brought up teaching, and I had never really thought about it. I thought long and hard about it that next semester. I ended up taking a course in education, ended up volunteering and did an after-school program with inner-city kids in Roanoke, Virginia, and I realized I really enjoyed working with young people.”
Some teachers, like science teacher Melissa Hodges, originally wanted to have a completely different career.
“When I started college, I was a music theater major,” says Hodges. “I was sitting in my dance classes and my acting classes, and they were fun, and then I went to the pre-algebra class that was required for music theater majors, and I was like, can I take calculus instead? Apparently that’s not normal. So, after the first year, I was academically bored. I feel like teaching is my way of combining both nerds: I get to be the silent math geek while also still acting like an idiot every day.”
Others, like history teacher Michael Sturges, had someone they were inspired by.
“My English teacher, Mr. Yarusavage – yeah, that’s his last name, [like] ‘you’re a savage’ – and guess what? He was,” says Sturges. “I try to model my rapport with students on him and how brutal he was.”
For some teachers at Nonnewaug, teaching wasn’t even their first job.
“My first career was sports journalism,” says history teacher Kyle Brennan. “In order to advance and make decent money in writing, you have to be willing to relocate and work in cities and go all over the country, and I didn’t feel like that aligned with some of the other stuff that was important to me. I personally had a really good high school experience and maintained good relationships with not only my own high school teachers, but also through doing high school sportswriting, I was always still kind of connected to high school.”
Even though most of the staff at Nonnewaug love their job, many have a different job they keep in the back of their minds. Hodges said she’d like to become an environmental chemist.
“I’d be out researching soil contaminants, mortar contaminants, and how to counteract those,” Hodges said. “I’d be outside doing chemistry still, but being an actual chemist.”
Guerette’s job choice would be slightly different from his past careers that included cook, admissions counselor, bartender, and bouncer.
“I think I’d like to be one of those guys who, when one of the Boston Celtics falls, the guy who wipes up the sweat on the floor,” Guerette said. “That’d be pretty sweet. I’ll go to all the Celtics games and all I have to do is wipe up their sweat once in a while. I could do that.”
Kornblut’s ideal job, unlike teaching, takes place underwater.
“If I could be anything, it would be a marine biologist,” says Kornblut. “Well, really a shark biologist, and [I’d] research sharks along the east coast and travel around the world. They’re a huge passion of mine; I’m obsessed with everything shark.”
The only question that every teacher had the same response to was: “Do you regret being a teacher?”
“No, no, so far, so good,” says Guerette. “I mean, like any job, you have good days and bad, but I’ve never been like, I gotta find a new job.”
“No,” Hodges agreed. “I mean, most of the time, I like seeing the kids grow and learn things and me actually contributing to them going out in the world and actually becoming successful adults.”
Kornblut feels being a teacher makes you more empathetic and understanding.
“I definitely think becoming a teacher has helped me to empathize with people in different situations and understand that people come from all different backgrounds,” says Kornblut. “You never know what someone struggles with or what their background is.”
