How I Spent My Sophomore Year Teaching

I dropped out of high school after my freshman year. I couldn’t thrive in a public school environment. When dropping out, there’s really only two things people can choose to think about you; that you’re a burnout, or that you’re a prodigy. There’s no in-between. It’s decidedly easier to adopt the former portrayals than the latter, so I knew I had to do something to defy expectations.

I was absolutely lost as to where to start, so I was passing the time by doing what I loved; tech. I ‘Frankensteined’ my own PC out of three older ones, touched-up on my coding, and learned how to run a 3D printer. Technology blossomed into 100% of my education curriculum, as well as a big chunk of my day-to-day life.

I started to do this thing where I’d log in to unsecured WiFi modems and poke around the BIOS. I earned a reputation for changing people’s WiFi names to something obscure, and in some cases, just my name. Most people hated it, though luck would have it, one victim happened to be Janet Broadbent. Janet is a jack-of-all-trades at the local homeschool co-op. She’d spent the past few days scouring Craigslist and social media for anybody to teach Computers at the last minute, after the previously lined-up teacher putzed out. On the night before the first day of school, she went online to make one last attempt. It was then that Janet’s husband recommended ‘the kid screwing with our router’.

Janet immediately gave me a call. Soon after, she met with me in person to explain the position a little better. With little convincing, I agreed to fill-in for ‘about a month’.

In the first month teaching, I developed a solid curriculum and adopted another class, Typing, from another teacher with too much on her hands. After proving myself and getting approval from the board, I made the decision to take over for the entire school year. I took on that year equipped with almost no qualifications, but a world of drive.