English 3 teacher Megan Stinson taught junior high students at Killian Middle School for seven years. Though she loved working with students at Killian, she decided it was time for a change.

“I was ready for some maturity, and I’m getting that for the most part,” Stinson said. “I have always wanted to teach high school, but when you start out, you kind of want to get your feet wet with something more comfortable and really master that. I was ready to move up to a more rigorous curriculum and have those older kids that could have those deeper conversations.”

 Stinson has always had a love for teaching but was truly inspired to pursue it as a career after taking her first AP class in her junior year of high school.

“The biggest [one] that had the biggest impact was my high school teacher; she was my junior English teacher,” Stinson said. “It was an AP English class that I took and she really encouraged me to think. She made me see reading in a whole different way. She really made me think differently and expand my view of stuff for reading.”

On top of teaching a different age group of students, Stinson also sponsors Hands of Hope, a writing mentor program between students at Hebron and students from elementary schools nearby. 

“When I saw [Hands of Hope], A, I’m an English teacher, so the writing aspect caught my eye but B, it was a way to really get involved in the school,” Stinson said. “It’s so easy in high school to be limited to your hallway and who’s in your department, so I really wanted to kind of get out of my room and see kids who aren’t my students get involved in anyway that I could in the school.”

Stinson said her favorite part about being a teacher is her involvement with the students and the relationships she builds with them. 

“Such a small amount of [teaching] is you getting in front of the kids, teaching them and interacting with them,” Stinson said. “There’s so much more behind the scenes and I wish that my whole job was to be in front of the kids. I love building those relationships with them. I love joking with them, making fun of them, making them laugh. That’s why I got into this.”