A career meant to be

Adam Jameson never intended to be a teacher – until he was one

By California State University, Bakersfield

July 27^th, 2021

This is one in a series of stories about some of the CSUB Alumni Association's 2021-2022 scholarship recipients.

It took time away from the classroom for Adam Jameson to realize he belonged in the classroom.

Jameson took short- and long-term substitute teaching jobs after earning an economics degree in 2019 because he couldn’t land any other work.

He liked subbing, the kids seemed to like him, and he was getting better and better at it. Still, he wanted to pursue an economics career and even enrolled in an online master’s in economics program at West Texas A&M University.

Then the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, and there was no teaching for Jameson to do. Between then and that summer, he increasingly felt something was missing.

“I really missed working with the kids,” he said.

Fast forward to today and Jameson is in CSUB’s credential program while also taking master’s classes at West Texas A&M so he can teach community college one day. Add a full-time math teaching job at Stonecreek Junior High and wedding in the fall, and it will be a busy schedule.

But Jameson is ready for it.

“Regardless of how the fall semester goes,” he said in his scholarship application, “I can finally say that I know what I want to do as a career and it feels more and more exhilarating each day…”

'Looking down on myself'

It had also taken Jameson a while to figure out what to study in college, and it was a source of great anxiety for him as a Bakersfield High School Driller whose AP classmates knew what they wanted to major in.

“I was looking down on myself because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I wasn’t seeing something that they were,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing wrong.”

Because of his indecisiveness, and to save money, Jameson enrolled at Bakersfield College. He didn’t like English or advanced math but did like figuring out how people spend money. So he majored in economics and after two years, transferred to CSUB.

Jameson earned his bachelor’s degree in Spring 2019.

Over the summer, every job application Jameson submitted was met with rejection or no reply at all. So in the fall he started substitute teaching in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District and Kern High School District, just showing up and following teachers’ instructions.

He was pretty far outside his comfort zone as someone who didn’t like public speaking.

In late fall, Jameson landed a long-term subbing job in a junior high math class and it required him to develop lessons, administer tests and grade them. He took to it.

“As the weeks went on, I was liking it more and more,” Jameson said. “They were very nice,” he said of the students, “and they liked me, too.”

When a Mira Monte High School math teacher went on maternity leave after the holidays, he picked up that long-term substitute teaching gig and his affection for the profession continued to grow.

“I really like to drive home the idea of math in the real world,” Jameson said. “It’s not just something useless that you learned in school and will never use again.

“…And once the students kind of see the benefits of it, they want to be engaged and want to listen to what you have to say.”

Along the way, other Mira Monte math teachers offered guidance and answered his questions .

An exit, then return

When COVID-19 sent teachers and students home, Jameson’s assignment ended. During his “extra-long summer” of 2020, Jameson increasingly missed teaching and at the end decided it was the career for him.

Jameson signed up for five prerequisite credential courses in the fall to take while also working on his master’s degree and accepting 30-day substitute teaching positions. He even subbed in English classes, the subject he never liked, because he knew it would be good experience.

“I liked it as soon as I walked in, even if it was on Zoom,” Jameson said of returning to the classroom. “I only saw like three of the kids’ faces the whole time (since so many had their cameras off), but it was very enjoyable and that re-solidified the idea of me being a math teacher.”

And that’s what Jameson will be at Stonecreek Junior High, a math teacher. He thinks his ultimate goals will be to teach at Mira Monte or BHS, and then Bakersfield College