Teaching as a second career
Hello, I am Holly
Hasselbring, and this is my second year teaching 2nd grade at HBRES. It’s only
my second year teaching, but I may not look like a typical 2nd year teacher. I
am married and have 3 daughters, Maggie (13), Ruby (11) and Ceci (9).
 |
| Holly Hasselbring (middle) with her 2nd grade teammates, Becky Lauer (left) and Jessica Bish (right) |
I had wanted
to be a teacher from a very young age, but somewhere along the way I lost that.
After high school, I decided to go to college at Illinois State and major in
Athletic Training with a minor in PE teaching. The summer between my freshman
and sophomore year I started working at a restaurant in Normal, IL. I was a
server and I loved my job. I loved learning something brand new, I loved most
of my coworkers and I loved that I was pretty good at it. Soon, I started
training new staff and then I became an assistant manager of that small
restaurant. While I was training I met my future husband who was a cook at the
same restaurant. I was a manager there for a couple of years and in that time
my classes got a lot harder and I questioned if what I was doing was the right
thing. I ended up taking less classes so that I could work more, and then
stopped taking classes all together. I decided that I could make a career out
of the restaurant business. I moved on from that little restaurant in Normal. I
worked for a small corporate restaurant with locations in the western suburbs.
My husband and I got married and we moved back to Sycamore where I grew up. I
loved my new job and quickly became the General Manager of our Woodridge
location. I was good at my job but it was a ton of hours. I was working 65-70
hours per week and started missing family events and even had to work on the
day of my rehearsal dinner. Fast forward a year or so and I was pregnant with
our first daughter. I had always wanted to be a stay at home mom so I left
restaurant management and stayed home with my girls for about 12 years. In that
time I taught ballet classes, led a boot camp class at the YMCA, volunteered at
my kids’ schools, coached softball and soccer, and finally started substitute
teaching. I knew from all of those things that I needed to be a teacher. I went
back to school at age 37 and graduated when I was 40. While at NIU I loved all
of my classes, despite being the 2nd oldest one there (there was a guy that was
3 months older than me), but especially the classes that I took for my reading
teaching endorsement. I have become a huge nerd about reading instruction and
learning how to best help all of my students. I have read many books about the
science of reading, listened to a whole bunch of podcasts and if you ask me
about primary reading instruction, you may get more information than you
bargained for! I am so happy to be at HBRES where everyone wants to do their
absolute best for their students. I love collaborating and sharing ideas with
everyone. I truly believe that when we know better, we do better and I love
learning from everyone here!