#83 Cecilia Baader: Your High School English Teacher

Cecilia Baader was born in Chicago in 1973. Both of her parents were history teachers and the family’s summer vacations were at Civil War battlefields. Her senior year of college she was depressed, stopped going to classes, and dropped out of school. She got a job doing technical support and training for farmers and their GPS equipment. She hated the job and was 5 minutes late every day as a form of protest. When she hated the job too much, she quit and went back to college. She finished her degree and then earned her masters as well. Now she’s an English teacher in an inner city school in Chicago and she gets to work early every day. Cecilia loves the kids and loves that she’s doing something that matters. She fights so hard to keep her kids in school. She calls them at home. She goes to their houses. It’s good that she’s a teacher. She was always a stage person, so now she gets to spend a lot of time in front of her class. Cecilia became a teacher, in part, because she thought that the job would give her time to write, but, of course, the job is overwhelming. And the summers, a good teacher needs all that time to recover and get ready for the next school year. That is when Cecilia gets to hang out with friends and family. Cecilia’s close with all of her siblings and loves being the favorite aunt to her many nieces and nephews. Eventually, she will attend graduate school in educational administration or educational policy so that she can change things that she can’t change as a teacher. What else? Cecilia loves kung-fu movies. That’s not enough? Well, she loves to run and is obsessed with penguins. More? OK, she’s taking tap dancing lessons, but that’s all I’ve got. OK, one more thing: You should wish that you had her for your high school English teacher.

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