Kelsi kirchoff

Tell us why you became a teacher

Long story short, I didn’t love school as a kid. I did the bare minimum, skated by and went through the motions. In 7th grade I couldn’t skate by anymore and I actually had to read a book, cover to back. My teacher at the time, Mr. Graves, made me want to keep reading it. And that was the first time I’d ever felt that. I thought maybe if I could do this for kids before 7th grade, they’d learn to appreciate what a gift school, classmates and teachers could be.

Tell us about your most memorable teaching experience

There are ones that make you laugh out loud, and the ones where you hold back tears. My most memorable experience was having my very first class (11 years ago) come find me at my new school the day after they graduated high school, to tell me I was one of the most influential teachers of their education. I was their 5th grade teacher, and they were my first class ever. I thought I royally messed up that year because I had SO MUCH to learn. But to them, it was their best year.

What would you do with the $25,000?

On a teachers salary, you don’t really get the opportunity to pay back loans the way you should without interest affecting the payments after 10 years of trying to pay them off. So I’d pay off my student loans to get myself out of debt. Then I’d take my kids to Disneyland.