By Jade Schwarting

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Although not her dream job, becoming a teacher was a quick decision.

In 1984, English teacher Elizabeth Levy graduated from the University of Columbia Journalism School and worked as a journalist for 10 years covering crime, rundown neighborhoods, education and presidential elections before deciding to pursue a career in education.

Many years ago, Levy was walking down the street in a “ghetto type” area with a community leader doing a routine rundown neighborhood interview, constantly staying alert and continuing to look at what was in front of her.

“I turned a corner, and as I looked up, I could see the barrel of a gun pointing right at my face,” Levy said. “I froze initially; I mean I just stood there squeezing the pen so tightly, I could literally feel that I was pushing my fingers into the grooves (of the pen). I didn’t care though, and as I raised my head a little more, I could make out a figure beyond the gun, somewhat shorter. I heard this little voice say, ‘I’m sorry sir,’ and I could see that this was a young boy, probably about nine or 10 years old.”

After the initial shock of the situation, Levy asked the man what she had done wrong or why she was threatened like that. Levy said, “He simply told me that was why I was there. He told me that I was preaching to the choir. He said the people reading my stories were either people who were trying to solve the issues or people who drove past towns like this one without doing anything. He said that if I wanted to fix the problems and get these children off the street and into schools, that I should stop writing these stories and arm myself with notebooks and textbooks and be a teacher.”

In March of 1994, Levy decided to follow the man’s advice. She turned in her letter of resignation, sold her convertible and lived with her parents until she finished graduate school. A few years later, she began her teaching career. Levy said, “I realized that it takes more than writing these peoples’ issues to solve them. The pen is not mightier than the sword. If anything, you need your pen and your feet.”

Aside from her teaching career, Levy, under the published name of Elizabeth Krasnoff Levy, has also been published as a freelance writer, poet and essayist, recently finished a short story and is currently working on a novel. Levy said, “I still write, I write every day. I love teaching, but I also love my writing job. I have to take that seriously, too, and spend time on it.”

English teacher Susan Johnson also has a background in a career different than teaching. She was an insurance agent working for the Title and Premier Personal Lines branches of the company. The Title branch focused mainly on closing mortgages while the Premier Personal Line dealt with personal art and jewelry collections.

It was no accident Johnson stumbled upon teaching; it had actually always been her passion. Johnson said, “Teaching was what I always wanted to do. And at 30 I had a pre-mid-life crisis and decided I could either sit my whole life in a cubicle or actually do what I wanted to do. And at that time, I decided that if I didn’t go back to school then, I probably never would.”

Teachers such as Levy and Johnson with a background in areas other than education are actually in high demand. According to an article in the San Francisco Business Times, the National Education Association has begun a $3 million campaign to recruit second-career adults to the teacher profession. In the article, California State Hayward University’s chairman Phil Duren said most of these adults studying to be teachers had a past occupation in business and said the salary difference means nothing to them; they were simply dissatisfied with their past careers.

While still working full time as an insurance agent, Johnson attended IUPUI and Indiana Wesleyan University. “I fell into the insurance job; it was available so I took it,” she said. “When I was little, I used to study by pretending I was teaching. It was my dream. I just had to go out and get it. There was no one big event (that made me want to switch careers), it was the monotony of every day and I knew that was not what I wanted to do. When I went back to school as an adult, I appreciated it more and understood it better. I wouldn’t change anything.”

Levy said teaching here has been everything she expected and more. Levy said, “I love being at Carmel; the students are everything I could ask for. They’re fun and funny, challenging and clever, just everything a teacher would want. I just hope they get something out of my class that they can take with them in whatever they decide they want to do.”