One of my favorite things to photograph is people as they live. Seeing the everyday interactions and activities, captured into what we photographers like to call a “moment,” makes the specialness of everyday so much more apparent.

I recently had the honor of sitting in one local teacher’s classroom for the day. Ms. Cindy McGean is a phenomenal teacher – her patience, encouragement and creativity are immediately obvious. I was in awe of how full the entire day is. If Ms. McGean wasn’t actively teaching the entire class, she was conferencing with a student or another teacher, assessing & recording student’s various skill levels for later assessments, or prepping for the next subject. There was no down time. At all.

Her words follow.

I knew from pretty early on that I wanted to work with kids. I worked with kids in high school at a day care center and really enjoyed it.

After college I worked in a children’s museum for a while and I basically wanted to keep actually doing things until I got to the point that I didn’t have the degree I needed to get any further. I ended up working for an organization called Metropolitan Family Service where I was running their volunteer program.

I realized I was doing administrative work and I wanted to be doing what my volunteers were doing. That meant it was time to go back to school and get my teaching license.

I think it is a powerful way to make a difference in the world.

You can change the world one person at a time.

It is also never boring and it energizes me.

I spend a lot of time thinking about things, making connections and solving problems in my head.

But in terms of the why – you can change the world one person at a time. I think we all remember somebody like that.

There’s a lot of resiliency research around what makes a difference for kids when they have something hard happen, and part of it is caring adults in their life.

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Thank you so much for welcoming me into your classroom Ms. McGean! I have a lot of respect and admiration for the work you do and they way you do it!