karen mustonen

I have been in education for 23 years, and I currently teach grades 9 through 12 at the Bethlehem Area Vocational Technical School, where I have been for three years. I am a certified teacher for commercial baking and culinary arts. A typical day for me involves hands-on learning - for example, today we had a party of 30 people for desserts, so we got chocolate cake and flan ready and plated them. My kids clean a lot. We prepped cookies for tomorrow, had tours come through where we served snacks and shared about what we do in the bake shop. Right now, we are prepping for Cupcake Wars next week, where we have to make a thousand cupcakes. Because it is retail commercial baking, we make like 5-6 dozen in one shot. What I like most about being an educator is seeing the light go on when the kid finally gets it. My greatest accomplishment in my career has been just becoming a teacher - when I became an educator, I felt like I won the lottery. It was a wow factor for me because I was a high school dropout, so I never expected to become a teacher. That was the last thing on my list, and I became a teacher by accident. That is why I got my doctorate - to show my students that they can do whatever they want to do with their lives.