Hey yall! Happy Tuesday! In today’s post I would like to tell yall about the person who inspired me to teach. But the funny thing is that I never wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be a broadcaster, marry a football player and life would be great. It wasn’t until I started working at Camp Thurman after I graduated college that I even considered being a teacher. Camp Thurman was a place where I had the opportunity to teach kids about the Lord, harness them for ziplines and climbing walls, and remind the kids that the Lord has a plan for them and they are unique. It was such a rewarding job and the idea that I could do that every summer was unreal. I could finally show kids and students the love and affirmation they might be missing in their daily life. But the thing is I can’t work at summer camp forever… I can only really work there just a few more years before I must start truly living and make a living for myself. So, what am I going to do? I began to think of jobs that would allow me to work with students and help them grow. Now who does that? TEACHERS. That’s right, teachers are the saving grace to society and remind kids that they are unique, worth their time, and have a purpose in life. I started thinking about my previous teachers; Mrs. Morris, Mrs. Polito, Mr. Gage, Mrs. Vick, Mrs. Rojas, and finally Mrs. Allibon. These teachers impacted me more than words can describe. Mrs. Allibon is the sole reason I am going to be a teacher.
Mrs. Amy Allibon was my choir director from 11th grade and 12th grade. I have been in choir since the 6th grade and I loved every minute of it, that is until my freshman year and sophomore year. I grew up in choir and in middle school my choir was really good. I felt like we were at the same level as a high school choir and when I got into choir I felt that my middle school choir was better than my high school choir. I was just going through the motion and felt that my freshman and sophomore director Mrs. Graff really wasn’t pushing us. I felt like I was challenged more in middle school. Anyway, I stuck with choir my freshman and sophomore year all the way until the end but I was just kind of bored with it. I didn’t try out for choir that May. I decided that after my sophomore year I was to be done with choir. All of that changed on the very last day of school my sophomore year. I was in choir and Mrs. Graff wasn’t there that day so the varsity director Mrs. Allibon filled in. She mostly hung out in her office since it was the last day and all and things were very chill in the choir room. My phone died and no one around had a charger so I decided to go to Mrs. Allibon and ask her for one. I had talked to her may times but didn’t really know her because she wasn’t my JV director. In that moment of asking to borrow her charger something happened. We began to talk and she asked me all sorts of question, genuinely try to know who I was. She ultimately lead me to the question of why I was no longer going to be in choir. I was honest with her and what’s crazy was I was dead set on leaving the program but like I said something changed. She told me I had a beautiful voice. First off I didn’t even really even think she knew who I was and she was telling me I had a beautiful voice. I was like okay … go on. She the began to tell me all the things Mrs. Graff told her about me. How I was a leader, a strong singer, and was sure that if I continued with choir I would make varsity choir easily the following years. This was all new to me. The varsity choir was AMAZING. They did challenging after challenging piece and I would have loved to be apart of it but to be honest a lot of my friends had dropped choir, I wasn’t close with many people and I was just about ready to walk out those doors and never return. That is until Mrs. Allibon asked me one last question. “I know you are not coming back but do you think I could hear you sing the Chorale (the varsity choir name) audition piece”. I didn’t think anything of it and so I agreed. I have no idea how it happened, but I made Varsity choir right there on the spot. It was a risk because I had such a crappy time the past two year, but Mrs. Allison saw potential in me. Potential I never saw in myself before.
That was my first of many memorable moments I had with “Bon”. She changed my life. The following years were extremely different from my first two years of high school. Because of Mrs. Allibon I was given leadership opportunities, a position in the show choir, and the confidence to sing my first solo at a concert my senior year, and finally become of this new confidence, a junior high worship leader. Amy Allibon is everything that I hope to be as a teacher. She is classy. She is organized. She is inclusive. She is respectable. She is personable. She is womanly always. Mrs. Allibon was a phenomenal teacher. She took time after hours to work with students. She was persistent and stubborn but also spoke from her heart. She was very much a essentialist. She taught students how to read and interpret music, understand rhythm, and sing on pitch and effectively. She taught what she needed to teach but also, she taught me so many things that being in a standard class room I don’t think I would have comprehended as well. Mrs. Allibon was a teacher who didn’t look at me as a grade or class rank but someone who had something to offer. Every day she would ask the class how we were doing and twice a semester she would have a one on one meeting with every student in her choir. This was a time to reflect on how school was going and just another reason why Mrs. Allibon stood out among my teachers.
I hope to be half the teacher Mrs. Allibon is. I don’t want to teach music, but I believe that her way of teaching can be implemented in any classroom. I would like to get to know my students, have those meetings throughout the semester, and be a friendly face in the hallway who went to all of her students events. She was a teacher for the students and a role model for a life time. Mrs. Allibon is the reason I want to teach because she made me feel special and that is something I hope one of my students will say about me.
Now that you have read why I want to teach and my reasons why I hope that you can think back to that one teacher who stands out to you and remind you why you wanted to teach in the first place.
Peace n’ Blessings
-Aspen
Aspen's State of Mind 