“Stay focused and determined!”

Determined to create my own magic when studying for school, I expressed my desires to my parents. With the help of a tutor, I discovered what kind of learning and teaching styles and techniques worked for me. School was not so bad after all, and I was enjoying the learning process. I successfully made it through high school and started right into college taking general education classes.

Defeat rose again as I struggled with grasping information at the fast college pace. I found the teachers boring and the subjects even more uninspiring. I eventually dropped out of college and took a job at the local regional office for American Express. During this time I was asked to train the new hires in my department. As I taught the new hires, I thought back to Miss Farber, who made learning so enjoyable, and I began to use some of her techniques. My new hires had so much fun learning their new material, and they retained the information in half the time of other department new hires.At this point, I began to discover my passion for teaching.

“The two best questions in life are ‘Why?’ and ‘Why not?’”

Six years later and still facilitating classes at American Express, my lifelong love of pastry overtook my passion for teaching. I longed to go back to college, but this time to culinary school and to switch my career to become a pastry chef. I remember thinking, “Will I do well in school or will my old school experiences come back to haunt me?” I was so nervous that first day of culinary school, nervous and excited all at the same time. I amazed myself during culinary school, earning As in all my classes, grasping techniques at first try and completing all my homework the day it was assigned. I graduated top in my class and realized I loved school. I loved learning about pastry, enjoyed all my instructors, and I found success in learning so easy for the first time since Miss Farber’s fourth-grade class.

Going to culinary school made me realize that I was not a slow learner at all, but a learner with multiple learning styles. I realized that I needed teachers and instructors who could teach according to many different learning styles of auditory, visual and kinetics all within one lesson. As a young pastry chef, I taught myself a lot about pastry techniques and skills from books, and I tried new things every week. I found myself reading and researching more and more about my craft. And when I was asked at work to teach a new pastry chef our shift and production work, I returned to my old bag of teaching tricks. But there was something different this time. I realized that I was not only teaching, I was teaching within my craft of pastry art. At that moment, my two passions of teaching and pastry came together, and I felt so energized.

“The road to success is littered with failure.”

Over the years I continued to work as a pastry chef in fine-dining establishments, convention hotels and an artisan-bread bake house, and even began my own dessert catering business. I loved every bit of it, yet my desire for teaching pastry was growing stronger.

Then out of the blue, I received a telephone call.I often tell my students to “Dream big or go home.” Well, on that day in December 2006, my biggest dream came true as I was interviewed for a teaching position at the local culinary school. I accepted my first official pastry-instructor job.

It has been an amazing six years teaching. When I am not in the kitchen teaching my students, I am thinking up new ways to meet their learning needs. I personally believe that most people, instructors or otherwise, teach in the same manner as they learn. My belief is that this method works only for a small portion of the student population.

“Success is driven by your grit.”

A good teacher or instructor must be able to recognize the learning styles of his or her students and adjust his or her teaching style to meet these student needs. This means an instructor must consistently shift and change how he or she delivers the material to meet students’ learning styles throughout a single class period. Likewise, many students might not know or be able to identify their own learning styles. Instructors must be open and able to guide their students through this discovery path in order to achieve student success in the classroom.

Discovering at a young age that I learned differently—then later in my adult life learning in great detail my learning styles—has enriched and strengthened who I am as an instructor today. I believe these skills help me enhance my students’ability to learn and open the doors for discovery learning in their later lives. With all that being said, I believe we all need a Miss Farber in our classroom.

“Wake up curious and wake up determined to find the answer.”