Ashley Hollern

I absolutely attribute my success to mentorship. Everything that I've ever done has come from the people I've met along the way - you never know where your path's gonna go, you have goals in life, but it's all about who you meet that helps you learn something. My program is absolutely rooted in that. When I spoke at NASA and at the Bolo Foundation's conference, both of my talks were actually on mentorship. Dr. Fritz was huge for me - when I used to teach nursing school, he helped me understand the connection between learning and application. I saw how the nurses would learn the content from me and then go into the field and experience it, and that really opened my eyes to the importance of practical teaching. That's why we created Authentic Exploration Matters - because we want the teachers to experience the content so they have a story to tell. If I'm going to hook students on something as a teacher, I need to be able to get them excited about what they're learning and make it relate to them. As long as you surround yourself with the right people, that's what matters. Sometimes you just need that person to talk to, to work through whatever it is.

I think teaching is honestly one of the most rewarding fields that there is, because you can make such a lasting impact. I know that sounds very cliche, but it's true when you look at those human type of fields like nursing and education - you are in it because you love what you do. I would very much encourage whoever is considering education to do it, and to find a school that they belong. I think that's a big part of it. Sometimes we just take a job to take a job, but there are schools out there that will work with them - it's just finding that right fit. I would say stay with it. As long as you surround yourself with the right people, that's what matters. Sometimes you just need that person to talk to, to work through whatever it is. That's why I'm trying to develop a mentorship program right now, because education has seen a pretty difficult hit here in the last 10 years. People who want to get into education don't go in for the money - you know what you're getting into. You go because you want to create and you love what you do.

One challenge is going to be across the board for any nonprofit, and that's fundraising. At the end of the day, you have to find donors and support, writing grants. We've done a lot of grant work - unfortunately, we saw a lot of grants cut last year. I was working with 8 universities to come up with a STEM grant, and then it got cut last minute. You have to be able to pick yourself up and continue on and look for new ways to fundraise. The other challenge is that in education today, we really need to rethink what we're doing with our teachers. I think a lot of hurdles would be red tape oriented - just being able to reach the right person to speak at a level that I need to, getting the changemakers to make changes. For me, I'm just trying to get as much attention from what we're trying to do so that I can hopefully make a bigger impact, because I know that it's needed. Ultimately, I'm in this field for the kids, and we really need to make some major changes in education because so many schools have long-term subs that don't have the proper background in classrooms for extended periods of time. Today, the way we do education, because we don't have enough competent people in the field and we're putting long-term subs in, they have such structure to the classroom - we have to be on page 10 on week 5 - and it limits your ability to do your craft, which is the human side of teaching, to really create things. That's what I hear from all the teachers I work with.

I think it's really important to see where there's a need and help people. I have 4 children - my oldest daughter's in college, my son's gonna go to college next year to play football, and then I have two other kids. I honestly enjoy spending time with them and seeing them find the same kind of interest that I have, and that is to really see where there's a need and help people. People who want to get into education don't go in for the money - you know what you're getting into. You go because you want to create and you love what you do. Ultimately, I'm in this field for the kids. Everything that I've ever done in my nonprofit started from the work I did with my students - I saw success in that, and that's why I started the nonprofit.