Mary Young:  

Life I'm a teacher and an Educational Technology Specialist in the Sacramento City Unified School District. I am also a district science mentor teacher. I have had the honor of working with NASA twice on education curriculum for the Mars MAVENS project. I also do staff development for the district. I am known as the "research and internet queen" at work! I currently teach 4th/5th grade, and believe me, it's not easy, although I love it. I was in a bad car accident in March 2019 and am still recuperating. It's been a very difficult time for me, but I am working through it. I am actually thinking about retiring, me, the workaholic whose students are so dear to me. I have some difficult decisions to make. School The teachers I most enjoyed were Mr. Woods, because he genuinely cared about his students and treated me with kindness, Mr. Emery because he was funny and made learning a blast, and Mr. Welch and Mr. Crabtree, because they helped us reach that artist inside each of us. College My first year of college was right after high school. I went for a year to CSUS but couldn't afford anything more than that. So I got a job and worked for 10 years, before quitting and going back to CSUS to get my B.A. in liberal studies and my teaching credential. I had a very eclectic college experience, from practically living in the Theater building for a year, working on productions and theatrical makeup, to hanging out with the archeology folks for a year, to majoring in astrophysics, then finally settling on becoming a teacher. It's a decision I've never regretted. Workplace I started working after I was a freshman in high school. I worked for two summers at McClellan AFB and loved it...and the positive attention I received from my bosses and co-workers. Then I worked in the tomato fields ... grueling work of 12 hours a day and 7 days a week...but I loved that too. It made me a better person. I spent 10 years between my first year of college and the rest of it working for Placer County, first as an Elections Technician and Jury Clerk, later as a dispatcher for the Sheriff's Dept, and finally working on microfilm and microfiche camera operations...Expand for more