Head of the Class: A New Teaching Career

Susana Temprano left a high-paying job at IBM to go back to school -- literally. Today, she reports to a room full of eighth graders.

As told to Janet Ungless

Education of a Teacher

"I like to say that one of the reasons I left corporate life to become an eighth-grade math teacher is that I struggled so much in school as a kid. I even failed kindergarten. When I tell that to my students, they laugh. But it's true.

"I was 3 when my parents immigrated to New York City from the Galicia area, in northwest Spain. When I was in grade school, bilingual programs weren't really offered, and I didn't understand the language well enough. When my teacher said that we had to read a book in three weeks, I understood it as 'three days.' I had a rough time in those first few years because I didn't want people to think I was stupid.

"My mother and father strongly believed that an education was the key to success, and they instilled that principle in me. I didn't go to an Ivy League school, but I got a good education because I wanted to succeed. I spent 20 years at IBM, working my way up from an entry-level administrative job to the position of client executive. I was on a great career path and making good money, but I wasn't thrilled about continuing on that road; I realized it was just going to be more of the same. At 40, I decided that teaching would be my way to give back. I knew it was time to move on and find my life's work.

"I've been teaching math, in English and in Spanish, for five years now at a public school in upper Manhattan. As the daughter of immigrants, I wanted to focus on helping Hispanic kids because they tend to lag behind the most when it comes to math, science, and technology. Ninety percent of my students are from the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico; the rest were born in the United States to Hispanic parents.

"In the beginning, my biggest fear was the financial risk: going from making a lot of money to very little. Although my husband worked, we had a daughter who'd just started college and a son who was in high school. I spent a year without health insurance, and it took four months just to get through the application process to become a teaching fellow." [Editor's note: The New York City Teaching Fellows program allows professionals from other fields to teach while studying for a master's degree in education.]