Christine Willits

Background

About Christine Willits

As many can attest to, the COVID-19 pandemic severely affected my steady employment as an English professor, so to stay busy while stuck at home, I started helping high school students with their homework on Zoom. I had always enjoyed working with my own students one-on-one during office hours and in the campus reading and writing center, so I found myself really looking forward to going to “work.” Before I knew it, I was working with six students Monday through Friday. My youngest student was about to start kindergarten, and my oldest was preparing for his senior year of high school. I was also meeting weekly with a 10th grader living in Shanghai. I was creating original lessons for almost all of my students, providing them with truly unique education that was 100% tailored to their needs. To my surprise, my business practically started itself, and it didn’t care if I was ready or not. Over the past year, I’ve learned so much about American education, running a successful business, and myself, and I never want it to end. It takes work to be an educator. It takes A LOT of work to be a good one. But what does it take to be the best? To me, it takes a deep-seated desire to learn for a lifetime, and to never reach a point where I feel comfortable to stop growing.