By Jamari Saint Cyr
Ms. Gruman is a teacher here at Apopka High School currently in her second year working at the school. She was born in New Jersey but was raised in Florida, and graduated from the University of Central Florida (UCF). She has taught Biology Honors, Principles of Biomedical and currently teaches AP Biology and Biomedical innovations which is the fourth year of the medical magnet program.
What about Biology do you love?
I like that Bio[logy] is relatable to everybody and that I have to prove to them that it is relatable to them because it’s literally about them but because the concepts are complex the students have a really hard time thinking it in the perspective of them so I’m always trying to challenge them with that idea.
Have you always known that you wanted to become a teacher or was that something you found out later on in life?
No no, in High School I said that I would never be a teacher. I’m being so serious, I was really adamant about never being a teacher because my sister was a teacher and I just kind of fell it. My degree was in biomedical science, I wasn’t competitive enough for medical school and I wasn’t getting paid enough at the animal hospital I was working at with the hours that I was working so I just explored this option and it’s worked out pretty well so far.
If you weren’t teaching what field do you think you’d be working in?
So I would probably still want to dive into biomedical science but the whole entire time in my undergrad the goal was ‘I gonna be a doctor”, ‘I’m gonna be a doctor’, ‘I’m gonna be a doctor’ which was just such a horrible idea. But if I could go back I would explore the research aspect of it and I would love to just like work in a lab and just try to figure something out or I would—because [for] biomedical a lot of the undergrad classes are the same as engineering students so I would explore engineering. I didn’t realize how much I appreciated finding stuff and building stuff until it was already too late in school so would want to explore something with that.
What are some things that you enjoy doing in your free time?
I have four animals so I have a lot of time spending with them of course, um… me, I don’t want to say I’m a ‘foodie’ I just like to eat so like I’m down to eat wherever [laughs]. Um…I don’t know, teaching is really hectic so when I’m not teaching I’m not actively doing stuff I’m trying to decompress I feel like that’s where my time goes into decompressing.
Feelings on school staff and environment?
So I’m at the North Campus so I feel in general pretty secluded, there are pros and cons to that, so I don’t really hear negativity or positivity because we’re kind of in our own little world out here but then sometimes again you feel secluded so I guess I’ll just leave it at that.
Has becoming a teacher changed or strengthened you in any way? How has it affected you personally?
Yeah, I would say it has changed me because…I don’t know I think you have this perspective, especially before you’re a teacher, where everybody will just get it like because you get it and like ‘this is how you learned it’ and it made sense when you did it so it’s just like a perspective of just trying to pull things from various backgrounds and trying to make it relatable for the everyday student and trying to hit the masses whether than saying that this is the only way you can learn this and I think especially being open to the idea [that] there are so many ways to learn it and so like whatever sticks for you will stick but you just kind of have to work with the students from an individual basis on that.
How often do you try to stay on top of current events?
I don’t. I’ll be so honest I don’t, I should [but] I don’t.
Do you have any thoughts you’d like to express about the incident that occurred in Parkland?
I’m heartbroken for the families, I think everybody mutually feels that way. But I feel like just stating what you’re feelings are doesn’t create change and I guess my biggest opinion is that I’m so happy that the students want to put in effort to show that they want change but I don’t think they understand the process of doing that. Especially at Apopka High School [with] the kids trying to do a “Walk out” the whole thing is that nobody had an even message on that like nobody knew and half the kids were walking out [thinking] now they could get out of class so like when we do actions like that it negates what we’re trying to put forward, does that make sense? I think people need to stop saying, even though I’m heartbroken, need to stop saying their feelings and actually do change and I think this is a good moment to say how we’ve done years without talking about politics because that’s not the social norm to do in the United States, and because of that people are not voting people keep saying they want change but they’re not doing the actions to change. So I’m hoping that maybe as instructors trying to share with students without putting too much of our opinions out there, that’s probably why we don’t do it in America because we’re so strong with our opinions but just trying to educate people that if you want change you have to do the actions of change and the number one thing you can do is vote. If you don’t vote then you’re not doing anything and if you’re too young to vote you can still volunteer towards campaigns without actually voting so if you’re not doing those actions then you don’t really have an actual written opinion.