Written By: Staff Writer, Hannah Nasluchacz
ATTENTION: New teacher, Emma Baldwin discusses her journey to becoming a teacher.
This brand new school year is bringing a multitude of changes to policies and appearances, but more specifically staff. Poly High School is welcoming many new teachers to campus, including teacher Emma Baldwin. Baldwin teaches Freshman Biology up in the 500’s building everyday.
Before committing her time to pursue a career of teaching, Baldwin was unsure about what she wanted her future job to be. She mentioned her struggles in high school sharing that she was always disorganized and that she always had to try as hard as possible to stay “on top of stuff.”
She “ended up doing a lot of different jobs” including working in retail and as a math tutor after graduating high school. After working to tutoring kids she realized that she wanted to be a teacher, so she attended the University of California, Riverside and graduated with a degree in biology.
Baldwin started her teaching career at Riverside Virtual School, where she taught biology and environmental science for three years virtually. Baldwin emphasizes how thrilled she was to join Poly’s teaching staff so that she could finally teach in person in her first ever classroom. Baldwin mentioned that most of her current decorations in her new classroom were passed down from the former teacher who used to work in the room. Her current favorite decoration is a poster that contains motivation sayings all over it.
When asked who the woman of one of her posters was, Baldwin gladly expressed her interest in the scientist named Rosalind Franklin. She explained that Franklin was a scientist that took pictures of DNA molecules and by taking those pictures she allowed other scientists to discover what the structure was. She added that “Franklin was good at what she did.”
Baldwin is looking forward to teaching in her classroom with all of her new students. She is getting to know the teachers here at Poly and is grateful for all of their help so far during this school year.