Thursday, December 8, 2011

The Best Teacher Ever!

341/365
341/365: The Best Teacher Ever!


My wife Gretchen was a successful electrical engineer working for Hewlett Packard--one of the most famous computer companies in the world--for over 12 years. Years ago when we started dating, I asked her if this is what she wanted to do with her life. I remember her telling me that making movies was her dream. At the time, she did not even know where to start. She also said that she knew that she would want to change careers at some point but she did not know exactly what she wanted to do.

Fast forward to a few years ago. First, she finally went ahead and made her first short film on her own. About a year later, she became a founding member of "The Spring Film Group" which is a very active local group that make small independent shorts (springfilmgroup.com. She created her own small production company "Lazy Gal Production", co-produced a bunch of shorts for SFG and directed a couple. One of her films won best comedy at a local festival. She also directed a short film based on Shirley Jackson's short story "The Daemon Lover", which was a dream of hers for a long time. The film is still in post production. (one of my 365 photos was a teaser poster for this film called "June")

During that time, she also finally find her calling and discovered a passion for teaching. It took a couple of years of classes and training but she was able to get a teacher certification and this fall, she left her lucrative job at HP to become a 5th grade math teacher.

She absolutely loves her new, much less lucrative job. She loves the kids and they love her and think she is a "cool" teacher. I visited her at school for a holiday dinner for the staff and family. Her class room walls are plastered with kids drawings declaring "Math Rocks" and "To the best teacher ever". She's never been happier… and I'm happy for her.

She also runs an after-school "Movie Making Club" which just produced its first short film--written, shot and acted in by a group of 8-10 year old students.
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