Teacher Spotlight Mrs. Gummo

I conducted an interview with Mrs Gummo who teaches Accounting I and II,  Advanced Accounting, Business Law I and II  and Sales/NFTE. She has been teaching for 27 years, but she has been teaching in the district for 25 years. Mrs. Gummo went into the teaching profession due to the fact that it is a career that works well with having and raising a family.  So it is safe to say that she is a family first type of person.

I asked her what is going on in the business department. She stated that there have been some new classes added for this year, one of which being the Business Bloggers course. She hopes to incorporate more computer technology classes. I believe that this will be a good idea due to the fact that the world is becoming more technologically advanced.

I also asked her what her favorite class was to teach. She does not have a favorite because she loves all her classes. She loves Accounting because she loves to play around with numbers. She loves her law classes because she enjoys witnessing the interaction between students when discussing current events and debating over issues that relate to their everyday lives. She also enjoys the creativity of the Sales class; she is taking this course to the next level with incorporating the FABLAB students to actually create prototypes of the innovations the students create.

Teaching can be a stressful profession that is often underpaid so I asked Mrs. Gummo what is the most stressful part for her. She stated that it is her schedule that is the most stressful. She is juggling 6-7 preps (sometimes 6/7 different classes) that means that she is switching gears every 42 minutes. That can cause some major exhaustion.

Lastly, I asked Mrs. Gummo what her most memorable year was teaching in Connellsville. She said that it was her first year teaching at the high school during the 1993/1994 school year . She taught all the keyboarding classes. Due to the fact that that was her first year of teaching in Connellsville she will always have that special connection with them. She stated, “I felt like they took me under their wing because I didn’t know a lot about Connellsville or the people in the area and the kids accepted me and taught me more about teaching than any course at IUP did.”

Lastly I leave you with this,  take as many business classes as possible. They are real world lessons that will further you not only in future schooling but in life.