Who: Nora Seilheimer.
Where: Nora’s a Michigan gal who resides in Chicago but who often daydreams about her travels in Thailand, Czech Republic and France.
What: After studying creative writing at Kalamazoo College Nora knew, for sure, that she did not want to go back to school right away. So, she escaped to Prague for a summer for a month long writers workshop.
She then moved to Chicago to assess life for a bit. After serving tourists and well-dressed businessmen at an overpriced Asian fusion restaurant downtown, finishing the Chicago Marathon and starting her blog, she applied to Chicago Teaching Fellows, a competitive alternative teaching certification program.
She landed the first and only teaching position she interviewed for and fell in love with her students instantly after several claims of
I don’t have to like them, I just have to teach them.
While she found her own writing took a back seat to teaching her students how to write, she soon realized she was collecting material for her great play Students Will Be Able Too… (which she completed while at La Muse and is now sending out).
While here, Nora even found the time to start dreaming up what NPO she might want to run and how. Right now, Nora is a high school special education English teacher in Chicago, IL. She also organizes the school’s literary magazine and afterschool yoga program and they’re lucky to have her!
In Her Words (what she realized at La Muse about being a teacher)
I don’t think that I needed distance from my students because they ran me ragged. I think I needed distance from my students to truly assess how they have changed me as a teacher and as a person. I have heard from other teachers that I will never forget my first group of students. Now, I totally understand why. My students may have thought they were just giving me a hard time, but really they were testing my balance, forcing me to be more flexible, preparing me for the adventures to come. They were shaping me for the future.