Her Story
About Barbara
I started my career as a paraeducator in a public school in Vermont, then realized I needed to get my teaching certification. I went to college in Vermont and got certified first as a social worker, working with juvenile delinquents at a co-ed facility. I decided I needed to get to these kids before they turned up there, so I went and got my master's in special education, also in Vermont. I worked in a public school in Vermont for about 4 or 5 years. I love to travel, so I realized I could take my skill set abroad and taught overseas for 12 years in different international schools. I was a classroom teacher, special educator, assistant principal, and director. I started a school in Kazakhstan and have had a lot of education experiences both in this country and out of this country. I worked in 8 or 10 different countries and traveled to probably over 50. I did a lot of teacher training and was involved in many cultures. For example, I worked for the State Department in Romania teaching English as a foreign language to adults and teachers, teaching them different methodologies. I worked in Qatar for 5 years where the Amir wanted a gifted and talented program in his school, so he hired me to create the program in elementary school and launch it. I coordinated with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and took some kids from overseas there for the summer program. I'm really good at developing programs, doing trainings, and doing presentations - I've probably done presentations at different venues around the world. Now I'm back in Vermont, I've let my teaching certifications expire, and I'm working as a floral merchandiser. I work for an independent company out of a giant grocery store in the produce department where I take care of the flowers, do the displays and bouquets, and work with customers. Before I went abroad, I used to have a plant business, so now I've kind of come full circle. I'm semi-retired now, working part-time.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Barbara
01What do you attribute your success to?
My mother was my biggest cheerleader. My siblings weren't too happy when I was traveling around and working overseas for 12 years, but my mother was always my biggest cheerleader. She was like, look, this is what you do. You're in education, you travel, you teach other people. You can't stop doing that. I support you 100%. So I would say definitely my mom. She was always my biggest supporter. Always.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was to go overseas to work. Because you learn a lot from other cultures. When you live in one culture and that's all you do, there's one way to look at things. When you travel abroad and you interact with other cultures, there's a lot of different ways to approach things, and you learn from other cultures that there's more than one way to do something. Someone asked me, well, how do you measure that? I don't know how you measure that, but it has certainly made me come around full circle, and I'm still in contact with many of my colleagues that I used to work with in the various countries that I lived in. I've also interacted with some of my students who are now adults. One of them lives in Chicago and he worked with me in Qatar and Doha. I've just grown professionally and personally. So I would give anyone advice - if you have any opportunity to go work abroad, even for a little while, take it, because it changes you. It opens your mind to other ways of looking at things, which I think is a good thing.
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