Sharon C. Pasquarette

Tell us why you became a teacher

I was in 4th grade when I decided to become a teacher. My dad was the janitor at my school. I was sadly ashamed of that and thought, my kids will be teacher's kids. Not a very good reason to become a teacher. I wanted my dad to be proud of me. But he never knew as he died unexpectedly one night when I was in 10th grade. But, he would have been proud of me, whether I became a teacher or not. My kids? Turns out whether you are the janitor's kid or the teacher's kid, it's all a crunch. :)

Tell us about your most memorable teaching experience

A fieldtrip to Gettysburg on a coach bus with malfunctioning air conditioning at 95 degrees outside comes to mind first. The windows were propped open with paper towel rolls. They fell out leaving evidence of our field trip, we had to recover them. The National Park Ranger 'helped' us. Once, cow eyes were delivered to be dissected. Unknown to us, the delivery man cracked the bucket and sat it in the school hallway on the carpet. It soaked the carpet. We could smell those eyes for a month.

What would you do with the $25,000?

I've had the privilege of traveling to some underprivileged schools over my career, to a reservation in Arizona and to the Dominican Republic. These schools were desperately poor. Their desks were so old, the wood had been etched with doodles over the decades, so the surface was too grooved to write on, but they had no choice. There was no running water and no toilet paper. I was shocked. We have no idea what we have. I would like to help an oppressed school with their needs.