I am celebrating my 20th year of teaching by profiling former students who are doing great things in their field. As I've watched them grow into adults, I have been impressed with an aspect of their lives and want to share them with you. I fully recognize that I was merely a small part in their growth and development, but I can't help to be proud. By highlighting these former students I hope to encourage other teachers that what we do is a noble and worthy cause. We have the ability to boost others to greatness we have never considered.
When I first met Megan, she was a goofy third grader. I was a new teacher at a mid-sized Christian school. Her mom was our lunch lady, and we got together outside of school regularly with another teacher and her husband. What I remember most about Megan was her love of the Three Stooges. If asked back in the mid- to late-90s what I thought Megan would do with her life, I would have to peg her as the Fourth Stooge.
As it turns out, Megan must have grown out of that goofy stage, but she’s at least making a living doing something in film.
Megan is self-employed as a freelancer in the television industry. For the most part, she’s working cameras, and she loves it! I am actually jealous, reading through her list of things she’s done. Megan has worked on shows for TLC, Discovery Channel, Lifetime, and the Food Network. She has filmed homicide teams solve murders, oil rigs test out new technology, and dancers and choreographers compete for championships.
She loves being in the middle of the action, getting to live a small part of someone else’s world, and seeing things she would never get to experience otherwise.
All talk of Three Stooges aside, the trajectory of Megan’s career began in high school, when she launched Moo Studios. She used this small company to create video promos for local businesses, and even created a video for our school (which she claims would be embarrassing to watch now). After graduating from college, she rebranded as Bug Studios and has flown with it from there. One of her early projects was an animation for Conan O’Brien!
Megan gives credit to God for opening doors to get her into these positions. As she works hard to perfect her craft, God continues to place things in her path to increase her career. She quotes, “God does not do great things exclusively through great people, but through people willing to trust Him in greater ways” (unknown)
As Megan films and works in the TV industry, she wants to continue to travel, including filming internationally. She has a list of places she would love to visit and work at and hopes these jobs become increasingly dangerous.
When asked how I helped (or hindered her on her journey), Megan answered, “I remember your sixth grade English class was the first time I really understood how to write stories. Writing my first 5-6 paragraph essay was an incredibly intimidating undertaking at the time. You helped us break it down and see it’s structure which demystified the seemingly laborious process of writing. I have since written a 100+ page script that is currently in development to be a feature-length film. But seriously, diagramming sentences made me want to gouge my eyes out and throw them at the chalkboard.” I feel the need -- RIGHT NOW -- to apologize to any student I forced to diagram a sentence. I can blame the curriculum, but I should have known better. Please forgive me.
However, I am encouraged to see that by breaking the writing process down into smaller chunks, I could help a student fall in love with writing and even become published!
Megan loves physical comedy, an artform she claims is lost in today’s entertainment industry. One of her life dreams is to bring things around full circle and create animation for Pixar or DreamWorks which would be in the Three Stooges genre of physical comedy.
I have somewhat lost touch with Megan over the years. While I follow her on social media, I had only a vague idea of what she’s been doing. I have thoroughly enjoyed catching up with her and hearing about the incredible work she has been doing.
Keep up the good work, Megan!
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