Mike Wason- Teacher

This is a brief history of my professional life: my education, my first career, changing careers, and my teaching career. It has at points been a wild ride, but I would like it no other way.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a head for numbers. Throughout my secondary education, I was placed in honors math classes. As a senior in high school, I took an accounting class, and I loved manipulating the numbers and the fact that all problems had a clear, correct answer. In 1978 I received a scholarship to Weber State College, and in 1982 I graduated with a major in accounting and a minor in mathematics.

I had serious doubts about being an accountant from even before I accepted my entry-level job with an international CPA firm. In my last year of college, something opened my eyes wide to the complexities and possibilities the early 1980’s held for a young Anglo man in the United States. I began to doubt and lose enthusiasm for clear, correct answers in life. My mind was on adventure, and accounting quickly became the antithesis of that. I delayed working as an accountant to ride my Kawasaki from coast to coast and up into Canada, usually camping in free spots off to the side of two-lane highways. Suddenly the gap between adventure and my career was huge. As a compromise and in an effort to not throw away my years of study, I sought and accepted an accounting position in Anchorage, Alaska.

After bouncing from one company to the next. I worked for four companies in six years. I decided that my compromise had not served me well. Anchorage was a great and adventurous place to live, but the accounting had to go. I applied for the Peace Corps, met my lovely wife, we re-applied as a couple, and in 1989 we were sent to Papua New Guinea (PNG) for the time of our lives. For two years we taught Melanesian Pidgin English literacy and numeracy skills to a remote group of people who lived in a very isolated part of the jungle. I had considered being a teacher ever since tutoring accounting and math in college, and this was a great opportunity to test the waters. I fell in love with teaching and was fascinated by the languages and cultures I encountered in PNG. Upon returning to the U.S., we eventually moved to El Paso, Texas to study linguistics and education. I have since taught ESL at the University of Utah, Salt Lake Community College (SLCC), and have been a teacher-trainer for the Granite School District. I love working with the students of Cyprus High School and hope I may continue doing so for many years. My wife currently teaches at SLCC. We both enjoy our careers very much, and I am so happy I have finally found a job I love.

I hope you have enjoyed learning more about me as much as I have enjoyed reminiscing. New friends often ask, how does one go from accounting to teaching high school ESL? ASimple,@ I say. AIt all started when I was a high school student myself and......@