For my interview, I decided to meet up with one of my grade 9 teachers. I found that when I was in his class he told some stories about how he fought for what he believed in, and how it was just recently that he became a teacher. So I wanted to investigate further and get the full story. Take a look.

Q: Tell me about yourself.

A: That’s a pretty broad topic. Well I am married and I have two children. I am a high school math and science teacher. I was born and raised in Edmonton; I lived there until I joined the air force at 18 years of age. I was in the air force for 11 years and during that time I visited every province and territory in the country. I think that is quite an accomplishment to actually have seen the entire country, including the Northwest Territories and the Arctic Ocean.

Q: Do you have any brothers or sisters?

A: Yes, so I am the youngest in my family. I have living, 2 sisters and a brother. I have lost 2 brothers in my life. My brother Ed, who was my hero growing up, died in a fire about 25 years ago; I was still in my 20’s when he died. My oldest brother John, passed away two years ago, he was ill the most of his life. He led a productive life, he worked in the post office for 25 years, but the end of his life was spent in the hospital for several years, it was time for him to move on.

Q: When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grow up and why?

A: I wanted to be a pilot, that’s why I joined the air force. Probably from age 12 when we flew to England for a family holiday, the whole sensation of flying and the idea that we flew around the North Pole from Edmonton to England. Looking down at open space was really cool. So that was my plan to be a pilot, but it unfortunately it didn’t work out.

Q: What sorts of jobs did you have before becoming a teacher?

A: Many. So because I failed my air force pilot training, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, they introduced me to this brand new technology called “the internet.”I wouldn’t have been a good pilot. But I turned out to be pretty good at communications and dealing with communications and electronic system. So that was my job in the air force, fixing them and building & designing new communication systems. That’s why I traveled all around the country, was to check out radar stations as a part of North American Air Defense (NORAD), the guys that tracked Santa Clause. So I did that, I was a captain in the air force, which meant that I usually had a lot of people working for me; lots, from 5 to 20 people. Usually they were older than I was, because I was still in my twenties. People, who were working for me, were often older and more experienced than me. And I learned very early that they are the people that you should listen to, and I should never assume that I know more than them, just because I am their boss. So, I left the air force after 11 years and then we moved to Calgary. My wife and I, we started our family here. And I worked in high tech electronics, so building communication systems again for the army this time, but I was no long in the military. I was working as a civilian in Calgary, for the company called “Computing Devices Canada” so the Canadian company did great stuff. And again I was a project manager, so I had people working for me, and it was fun. And then actually I left that job and started my own business at home, but I wasn’t very successful at that, so I decided that it was time to go back to school. And that’s when I started working at becoming a teacher. So it was very recently in my life actually, the past 5 years I guess in the teaching profession. Before that I did lots of other different things.

Q: Why did you want to leave your old job?

A: Well, President Bush kept dropping bombs on innocent people and I was really still part of what’s known as the “Military Industrial Establishment.” So I was part of the people who build bombs and make war and I didn’t want to be part of that anymore. We were at war and I didn’t really think we should be. I thought that we were in an illegal and unnecessary war. So I left that business, I didn’t want to be a part of that any more.

Q: What inspired you to become a teacher?

A: I found actually when I was working as a project manager and even in the air force, what I liked to do was talk with other people and work with them to solve problems. I was never the person to tell people what to do or how they should to do it. I was the person to try to get the group to come up with a solution. So a bit of a leadership role, I definitely considered myself a leader. What I really enjoyed was leading the group towards a solution. And most of the time it had never been done before. Most of the things that particularly my company did had never been done before by anyone in the world. We were building brand new technology, in new ways. So it was about discovery, new ways to do things and new ways to new solutions to old problems. So what does that have to do with teaching? Well one of the things I try to do is lead the class as oppose to direct the class. I want the class to discover their own ways; in particular individuals to discover their own way. I love when we get into discussion about different stuff and people go “Oh I get it now.” That big “aha moment” is the best part of teaching to me. I really dislike telling students what to do, now grade 9 students often need more direction but I hope that one of the things that they learn in my class is to be more self directed and figure out what they need to do to be successful.

Q: What do you love about becoming a teacher?

A: One of the things that I really loved, that I didn’t expect and was quite emotionally for me actually, was this year when I came back to the same school, and I saw students from last year. That was really, heartwarming for me; it was like “Wow. I miss these kids.” and “Oh yeah they do remember me.” There was a whole relationship over the whole year and even though all those students moved on to a new grade, we still know each other; we still have that whole year that we experienced together. So that was a surprise to me, I didn’t know that I would feel that way. I loved the energy of any school. One of the reasons I wanted to go back to university is because the vibe in a school, in a university, in a high school, in any school, there’s a high energy. There’s always something going on, an uplifting feeling compared to any business where you have to work harder to have fun. School is more fun, I think.

Q: What would be one positive thing that your last boss would say about you?

A: So I’m going to go back to a boss that would say something positive about me, cause my last boss, before I came into teaching, wouldn’t have anything nice to say about me. We left on not very good terms. So I’ll go back to the one before. When I was at the engineering company “Computing Devices” I think my boss would say that I’m courageous, that I would speak up when the emperor wasn’t wearing clothes. When there was something wrong, I wouldn’t hide it from my boss or the customer. I addressed it, I brought it up and I said this it wrong it needs to be fixed. Certainly not to blame people but to say “Hey, things aren’t working the way they should. What can we do to change it?” whereas often times people are afraid to give the boss bad news. And I learned very early, do not try to hide bad news. Get it out there quickly so you can deal with it and turn it into good news.

Q: What was the most difficult decision you’ve made in the last 2 years or so?

A: Let’s actually go back to the boss that I left on bad terms. There was only two ways to do things in his mind. There was his way and the wrong way. So any ideas that I came up with was the wrong way, and I didn’t want to work for him.  I quit that job, and I’ve never quit a job before without finishing it. I’ve always finished a job that I’ve taken. I may have moved on afterwards but that job I quit and I really felt, like a quitter. I felt like I was doing the wrong thing by leaving and so at the time it was a very difficult decision because I didn’t want to feel like a quitter. I wanted to be successful and wanted to do the right thing. Looking back now, it was the right thing; he and I just didn’t get along. There was no way he and I would get along. So I needed to quit. I needed to leave that job. But at the time I felt really bad, I felt like a failure.

There may be times where we all feel horrible about ourselves and think we’re failures, but looking back we may not be after all. All that matters is that we follow our dreams, and stand up for what we believe in, even if we are standing alone. This is what I have learned after conducting this interview, and I am very happy that I have. Because there is no other place I can learn these simple life lessons than here. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview, as it has inspired me. Even the quietest people have a lot to say.

Until next time, Andrew 🙂

Photo Credits:

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https://www.careeraddict.com/Leadership2.jpg

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