Amarou Yoder

Q: What is your favorite school assignment?

My favorite assignment to do with students is probably a personal anthology, where students choose a theme that is meaningful for them, yet still specific enough for the assignment. Then they are given a certain criteria of the different type of texts that it belongs to, and then they have to write a premise that introduces their anthology.

Q: Do you like teaching? What do you like about it?

I love to teach. the most important thing is being able to work with ideas, and work with students with ideas. I like to learn new things from my students; I teach literature, and there are many ways to approach any given text and I invariably learn new ways and interpretations from the students that I teach. Everytime I teach [English], I learn new things; it’s an incredibly creative job, and incredibly important in terms of working with kids and the future.

Q: What was the easiest job that you had?

None of my jobs have been easy, at the beginning there’s always a learning curve. My first job was as a legal assistant, just as a secretary; it was actually very difficult for me. It was my very first job, I made many mistakes, and my attention to detail wasn’t there. My boss was a friend of the family’s, otherwise I think he would’ve fired me. None of my jobs may have been easy, but I get a lot of satisfaction from my work; I wouldn’t ever want to not work because so much of who I am is what I do.