Tell us why you became a teacher

I became a teacher after substitute teaching at my old high school for a year. It was just after I graduated from college, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do career-wise, so I decided to substitute teach in my local school district. I love the students. Hearing students say, “You should have been my math teacher a long time ago, and then I would have never struggled with math" made me want to be a math teacher.

Tell us about your most memorable teaching experience

I was teaching coordinate planes and I turned my classroom into a coordinate plane using painter's tape. Well, during the test, one of the students stood up and started counting tiles as if he was on the coordinate plane. Ever since then, whenever I teach the coordinate plane, I use my floor as a real-life model.

What would you do with the $25,000?

The teacher in me will have to buy some supplies for my students and treat my 6th grade team to lunch. I'll probably take my family on vacation because my girls want to ride on a plane, and I’ll use the rest towards going back to school to get my degree in administration.