My name is Laura Hutchison. I'm in my fourth year of teaching, after spending 18 years as a reporter and editor at newspapers around Virginia. I got out of the newspaper business because I had become a dinosaur. Like newspapers themselves, I'd let technology pass me by. I tried playing catch-up. I took classes in XHTML and Web design. I learned how to shoot and edit digital video, but it all seemed like it was too little too late. When my family owned newspaper (which filed for bankruptcy last week) was forced into layoffs for the first time in its history, I got scared. I would not have been in a position to get another media job because I wasn't a Web journalist. So I thought about the only other career I'd ever considered--teaching. I'd been so strongly influenced by the amazing teachers I'd had the luck of being instructed by. Maybe, just maybe, I could be that kind of teacher. At any rate, it was the only thing I could think of that I might be able to love as much as I loved being a journalist. So I entered a career-switcher and got my license.

I got my first teaching job in October 2010. I could not have even begun to imagine what a task there was in front of me. I knew my content (kinda--it had been a LONG time since I'd had to think about the different parts of speech or literary elements. And I knew HOW to write, but I wasn't all that great at teaching someone else to do something that had always come easily for me.) I realized I had a lot to learn--probably a lot more than I had to offer as a teacher. At that moment, I vowed never to be behind the 8-ball again. I would keep up with technology, learn from my peers and my students, learn from anyone, anywhere, who had something valuable to teach. So I entered grad school, and have spent the past four years (between teaching and grad school) working harder than I've ever worked in my entire life. But I've also been as fulfilled as a human being as I've ever been. (Most days, at least.)

So, I guess that's really what I care about. I care about learning--lifelong learning--for myself and for my students. I want my students to be voracious about learning. To do that, I know I need to design lessons that will speak to them, that will matter to them. If I do that, I'm not only going to teach them about the plot diagram or soliloquies. I'm going to teach them that there's something to learn from every single thing that we do, that there is no human being from whom we can't learn something. And sometimes, we even teach ourselves. And if I do that, I'll feel like I succeeded.

I got a note from a student last week. I've gotten a few in my short teaching career. This student did well in my English 9 Honors class; finished the course with a B. I also teach her in my year-long journalism class. I knew she'd enjoyed English; she was an active participant in class discussions, turned in all her homework. But, had she not written me this note, I would never have learned that I really REACHED her. She said she'd learned a lot about literature and how to be a better writer, but the most important thing I'd taught her was how to live life. Specifically that you should do things because they are the right things to do, not because someone is watching. That note meant more to me than she will ever know. It meant that I had impacted her the way some of my teachers had impacted my life. And, for that moment, I felt like I was doing something right. And, as much as I enjoyed the note, it really only motivated me to do more, be a better teacher. Because if I could make that impact on one student in one semester, maybe this semester, I can reach two students in that way.

So I'll learn more, design better lessons, reflect more on how I can do and be better. I had the amazing opportunity as a kid to work for the legendary editorial cartoonist Herblock. I now serve on the board of the foundation he started in his will. One of his quotes is a favorite, and something I think about almost every day. It is: "There's always a clean slate, a fresh sheet of paper, a waiting space, a chance to have another shot at it tomorrow. Tomorrow!"