Tell us why you became a teacher

Growing up the music classroom was always my safe space for expressing myself. I felt like no matter what emotion I was feeling or what was on my plate at the time I could express myself through music and feel better. That is why I became a music teacher because I wanted to teach students how they could use music to express themself. There is no wrong way to listening and making music.

Tell us about your most memorable teaching experience

In my 3rd grade ukulele class this year I was teaching them a pretty hard song to play.For weeks I heard "I can't do this." "It's too hard." "I'm not good enough."By the 4th week of learning this song we finally got through the whole song without stopping. One student who is constantly tearing herself down responded,"I did it I actually sounded good and got through the song."She had the BIGGEST smile on her face. The rest of the week it's all she could talk about telling everyone she could do it

What would you do with the $25,000?

I'm wanting to buy instruments for my classroom. I started 5th grade band this year and soon ran out of my personal instruments and had to turn some students away from the class because I could not get my hands on band instruments. The money would go right back into my classroom so more students can learn another way to play music.