TOPICS OF DISCUSSION:
In this episode, I speak with Ryan about how he left personal finance at Circuit City to become a teacher via the Junior Achievement program, the challenges of relinquishing control of your class to someone else, teaching at the middle school level helps prepare you for teaching at the high school level, the transition from middle to high school teaching, and the requirements of student teaching.

WORDS OF WISDOM:
“Student teaching is basically one big interview for getting a job at that school.”
“Middle School teaching is about harnessing their energy while high school is more about dealing with apathy.”
“As a middle school teacher, I developed my pedagogical strategies to be super hands on, getting kids out of their seats, and doing a variety of different things.”
“Tenth graders might be the most difficult to teach.”
“Content is the least important of all of the different things you do in a class. For me, it’s more of the strategies and skills than the drill and kill content.”
“It’s a people job.”
“The more experience young people get in the classrooms with kids, the better teachers they will become.”
“When you’re doing counseling or coaching, you get to know the psyche of a young person and can only be beneficial in a school setting.”