Leeanna Miles, a substitute teacher from Las Vegas, Nev., found herself teaching in a classroom only a few years after being a student herself. Like many educators who began to teach during the pandemic, her experience has been a rollercoaster, but she says that it is one of the best career decisions she has ever made.
Miles, who primarily teaches social science subjects to high schoolers, applied to become a substitute teacher in April of 2021, but didn’t start teaching until September of that year. “I was really looking forward to seeing what being a teacher was all about, but I was nervous as hell,” she says.
The Clark County School District, Miles’ employer, spent their 2020–2021 school year online. With the current school year held in-person, Miles has had to make things work the best she can. “I sanitize my classroom every day,” she says, “in between classes, in the morning, and then at the end of the day. It’s difficult.”
Despite the circumstances, Miles makes the most of it. In her classroom, she has created an environment that is not only welcoming but encouraging as well. She has four whiteboards all around the classroom — one for announcements and assignments, two for doodles, and one last board called the “good stuff board.”
“I want to know the good stuff that’s going on, especially now, when things seem so difficult all the time. I want to make sure that my students are doing good,” Miles says. One day, she noticed a student anonymously wrote “I woke up today” on the good stuff board, in which she responded with “I’m so glad you did” underneath the students’ words. “I see it as a way to let students open up a little bit,” she says.
“My favorite experience as a teacher has got to be making connections with students,” Miles says. Before she started teaching high schoolers, Miles was a substitute teacher for first-graders. She remembers having a specific student in her class that was very attached to her. “She would draw me pictures all the time so I could tape them onto my wall. When I made the decision to switch schools, I felt really bad,” Miles says.
During her time teaching that first-grade class, Miles began to notice that the attached student was dealing with issues at home. “She cried frequently in class, and I would always console her and she’d tell me ‘Miss Miles, thank you so much. You’re so nice and the best teacher ever!’”
Now that she’s moved on to teaching high schoolers, the way she connects with students is different. Instead of working on crafts with first-graders, Miles is bonding over music and getting to know her students over small talk. “My students say hi to me in the hallways,” Miles says, “and just want to chat with me.”
“This job can be a bittersweet experience,” Miles says, “but to know that I can even have a small positive impact in a student’s life, that’s really nice.”
