Math teacher found past office jobs too routine for lifestyle

Math teacher Michele Drouin

Going through four jobs before attending college, math teacher Michele Drouin started her first job at age 13.

Drouin was adept at bowling, having learned the skill at age 4, and enjoyed working with children. Drouin did not feel like it was work, and perhaps was the first few steps towards her teaching career today.

Drouin started working at an early age because the allowance her parents gave her from doing chores was not enough. She wanted to spend money that she earned herself. According to Drouin, she didn’t attend college right after graduating from high school. In fact, she almost did not graduate because of her lack of interest in academics.

Just out of high school, Drouin’s first full-time job was a receptionist for a heating and air conditioning company in San Francisco. Later, she worked as an accounts payable clerk for a purchasing agent at a different company and lastly as a leasing agent at an apartment complex. From these jobs, Drouin understood what she wanted out of her life.

“I learned more about myself than anything,” said Drouin. “I learned that I wanted to have a job that I enjoy, where I can be active and have interaction with people, and that will be different every day in some way.”

According to Drouin, after a certain point in her life she realized that she did not want to sit behind a desk every day doing paperwork and filling out the same reports over and over. The tedious desk jobs motivated her to go back to school and search for her passion.

“The jobs were just that. Jobs. They were jobs that I could do and those paid the bills,” Drouin said.
While studying at UCSC, Drouin majored in math with no intention of teaching. She got involved with a fellowship program through the university where a group of college students went to a local high school to help out in classrooms.

“I found that I really enjoyed working with the students. Math was not my strong subject in high school. Ironic, I know,” said Drouin. “The time was coming for me to figure out what I was going to do once I graduated, so I decided to give teaching a try.”

Drouin has been teaching at SHS for 12 years and currently teaches AP Calculus AB and geometry. The biggest conflict that Drouin had to overcome was her fear of public speaking, but she was determined to overcome that obstacle in order to teach.

“I was the student that sat in the back corner of the room hoping the teacher would not call on me,” Drouin said. “I still do not like speaking in public. [Lecturing on] to my students is different somehow. Ask me to speak in front of a different audience and I get really nervous.”

Even her distaste for grading papers did not prevent her from being the best teacher she can be. Drouin enjoys how each day can bring a new experience to her classroom.

“The chemistry of a class that grows over the school year is an experience in itself that is different in every class. And it is different with each new group of students every year too,” said Drouin. “So while I do have some aspects of my job that I do daily, it’s never the same experience.”