Teacher Spotlight: Will Pszonak
Q: Where did you go to college?
A: State University of New York
Q: When did you start teaching?
A: 2013
Q:What made you decide to be a teacher?
A: “So, I originally wanted to be a marine biologist, and I did that for a while. The schedule was not conducive to having a family because it’d be one month out on the boat and then you’d be home for like two to three days, then you’d go back on the water for another month… my appendix burst, and at the time I was doing construction work on the side to work my way through college…I couldn’t do construction anymore, but my sister was working at a summer camp. They had one of the male camp counselors quit, and my sister called me panicking…so I went down and did that for two weeks and realized I really enjoyed working with kids. I went back to school and got a master’s degree in education.”
Q: If you didn’t teach environmental science, what do you think you would be doing instead?
A: “I worked part-time for a while as a fisheries biologist. Which, basically, instead of going out in the middle of the ocean studying stuff, you’re doing more freshwater stuff. I did that for a little bit, and with that you still come home at night. I probably would’ve done something similar if I didn’t love teaching, but I love teaching.”
Q: How many different animals/bugs do you have at school? Do you have more at home? Do you have any favorites and why?
A: “Nine or ten because some of them I have are subspecies. Some of the isopods I have- there’s one that right now, they’re still studying it trying to figure out if it is its own species or if just like a subspecies of that one. So, nine maybe ten if they finish doing that research.”
Q: You are the sponsor of the Ducks Unlimited club; do you do any hunting in your free time?
A: “I do. Ducks, most things that I am legally allowed to… so, if there’s a season for it, I probably hunt it. My yearly schedule is: I’m really focused on my garden all summer, focused on my hunting in the fall, and focused on my fishing in the spring, and between those three things I get a significant amount of the food we eat at home. I’m not hunting for antlers, I’m hunting because it’s a sustainable and ethical source of meat and protein for my family.”
Q: What is something interesting about you that few of your students or colleagues would know about?
A: “I’m a really big Disney nerd, and for no reason other than it was on my bucket list to work at Disney World. I took an extra class every semester of college so I could take a semester off and do an internship at Disney World. I ended up liking it so much that I actually worked there as a part time cast member every single summer that I was a teacher until my son was born. I worked there from 2010 to 2014.”
