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Can you tell us about yourself? 

“Hi, my name is Daphne Marie. I am a sixth grade English teacher at Virginia middle school in Bristol, Virginia. I've been teaching at Virginia middle school for two years now.”

Why did you start a career in education?

“I chose education as a career switch or actually I was not initially a teacher and I really just wanted to get into education to help children and to develop relationships with kids while teaching them a subject that I love, which is English.”

If you could have any other job what would it be and why?

“And you know, if I could have another job, would probably want to be an interior designer. I absolutely love turning my house into a home and everything that goes along with that. I love to change the paint color to add an accessory. So interior design would probably be my next job if I was not, teaching.”

How are kids different now than 30 years ago?

“Let's talk about kids, how their different goodness kids have technology now that we didn't have 30 years ago. When kids have social media and they definitely learn on different learning platforms, um, differences 30 years ago for teachers, you know, we had textbooks mostly and, and we used a lot of literature and a lot of hands on and um, you know, I think now technology is what kids are most looking to, um, in their classroom.”

What would you tell someone who wants to become a teacher?

“If I was going to give some words of advice or tell someone thinking about going into teaching or who's already in education right now, I would just tell you that we are so needed. You know, the children of today are different than they were 30 years ago, but they're still children and they need teachers to love them and to support them and to give them dreams and goals to strive for it. You know, it's not an easy job and there are challenges every day and some of the students can be difficult, but it's so fulfilling to get those relationships and to help those students, um, with, um, you know, their goals and their dreams.

What is one thing you would change to help kids learn better?

“Then finally, I think if I could make a change to help kids learn better, um, it's probably not, not popular. Maybe among the, um, those in government, but I would probably change the testing, um, criteria that we put on children today. They take so many tests and they have so much responsibility on them with the, um, the testing that we do and the standards that they are forced to, to try to achieve. And I think the pressures for teachers and children alike with the struggles of those testing can just be a little too much. And, um, you know, I think if I was going to help kids learn better, I would probably take away some of those pressures of testing. So go into teaching. It's a great thing.”