I wanted to be a teacher ever since grade school, besides playing football for the Chicago Bears of course. There was a two year period in middle school where I thought I wanted to be a doctor, but my History and English teacher Ms. Aikins told me that I was going to be a teacher. She just knew it. I told her no. Little did I know I was going to change my mind again. When I started High School at Lawrence High, I thought long and hard about what she told me, and I decided that teaching was a passion that I could not ignore. I thoroughly enjoyed getting up in front of people and talking. Two different teachers told me that I had given the best speech ever in their class. In fact, for one of the speeches, I stood up for thirty minutes with no notes arguing why the North won the Civil War. When I was finished, the teacher couldn't believe it had been thirty minutes because she was so entertained. It was from that time on, I knew I had to be a teacher.

   Since I had wanted to be a doctor, I naturally decided that I would teach Biology. I did not like math or physics during High School. My math skills were poor, which made physics difficult, because I enrolled in the Advanced Placement class. That was not a wise choice considering my strengths at the time. However, I did take a conceptual physics class the previous year, which helped to explain a lot of the concepts that I would eventually need later in college. During all of this, I was pursuing a dream to play football for major University and possibly beyond. Unfortunately, my career was abruptly ended at the end of my Senior season when I had to have back surgery on two ruptured discs. I thought at the time that I may have a chance to play, so I decided to try a Junior College just in case I could play. Fort Scott Community College made the most sense to me, because I liked the campus, the coaches, and the teachers. In fact, the coaches said that if I could not play, I could be a student assistant coach. That appealed to me greatly.

   So, I went to Fort Scott as a student assistant because it became painfully obvious to me over the off-season that I was never going to play football again. I still planned to teach Biology my freshman year. During my sophomore year I took physics and calculus; two classes I had previously taken in High School. Although I struggled with these classes the first time, the second time everything became clear. I literally woke up one day good at math. It was that dramatic. Of course, I have to give credit to my physics teacher, Mr. Theiking. He was a fabulous teacher. He spent so much time outside of class helping me truly understand physics. From that time, I had a complete turnaround. I loved math and physics, and was bored of biology. I began to read everything I could about physics. I was going to be a physics teacher.

   I decided to attend Washburn University in Topeka instead of KU because I liked the smaller school atmosphere at the time. Washburn is well known for its law school. It is not so well known for physics. In fact, you can only earn a bachelor's of science in physics because it is so small. However, small size means small classes. I actually had two classes in the upper level physics courses where I was the only student! The biggest class size was three. This was a tremendous advantage to me, because I could ask any question I wanted during class, and get one-on-one help outside of class with the professor. Most of my upper level classes were taught my Dr. Black. He basically picked up where Mr. Thieking left off. He had incredible patience with my many questions.

   So, I earned a Bachelor's of Science in Physics at Washburn University. I went to work for one year after I graduated before I stumbled across a job opening for a physics teacher at Immaculata High School. I wanted so badly to teach. I called them up and told them that I was not certified yet. I was hired with the condition that I go to school. So, I began teaching in the spring semester of 2000, began school that following summer, and finally finished my certification four years later in the summer of 2004. Thankfully, I was able to take graduate level education classes to count towards the certification. As a result, I actually finished my Master's of Science Degree in Teaching and Leadership in the spring of 2004. I am currently working on my Ph.D in Science Education.