A former Gilroy Unified School District substitute instructor—and part of the Dr. TJ Owens Gilroy Early College Academy’s first graduating class—is leaving her hometown to teach English in Thailand. Taylor Hadnot will begin teaching Sept. 29, just two days before her 21st birthday, and will work for the Thai government teaching her native language to children.
Though she said she’s essentially uprooting her life, Hadnot said teaching abroad just feels natural and she couldn’t be happier. At the age of 17, Hadnot graduated from GECA with an associate degree and a high school diploma in hand and enrolled at California State University at Stanislaus. Two years later, she graduated college at the age of 19 and worked as a substitute at nearly every school in Gilroy and taught kindergarten at Mountain View Elementary.
“The next obvious step in my life would be to travel. I’m just very excited and very happy that working three jobs for a solid year, working so hard in college to graduate early and so hard at GECA to get all of this since the time I was 12 has paid off,” she said. “It’s a real mixture of excitement, happiness and pride.”
When she talks about what she will be doing next month, Hadnot speaks with excitement and said she’ll have her very own classroom—soon filled with children between preschool and elementary school age.
As a student herself, Hadnot said her teachers at GECA greatly inspired her to pursue English and teaching, along with her mother—also a substitute teacher. The 20-year-old points to former GECA teachers Charla Mittman and Samuel Navarez with shaping her world view in high school and encouraging her to broaden her perspective.
“I give Mittman 90 percent of the credit for the person I am today,” Hadnot said. “She instilled in me such a strong love of the written word and the way writing can not only influence yourself; it’s a bridge between cultures, countries, between people and it’s a way of learning.”
While taking a world history course taught by Navarez, Hadnot said she felt inspired her to travel.
“(Navarez) was always the one who encouraged me to read about whatever culture caught my interest, because having some interest in it is better than none and it’s always better to pursue an interest than to let it fade,” she said.
But when she transitioned from being a student at GECA and CSU Stanislaus to becoming a substitute teacher, she said she knew education was where she belonged. During a three-month tenure at Mountain View Elementary, Hadnot said she had a kindergarten class of 30 students from all over the world, from Russia to Taiwan, and a majority did not speak English very well.
“I met with them individually and made sure they were socializing because feeling ostracized at that age is not a great thing,” Hadnot said. “I just loved that as I taught them, they would in turn trust me and teach me. By the end of the year, I had invitations to go to their graduation; I had been serenaded by lullabies by a six-year-old in Greek—all of these wonderful experiences I would have never had if I stayed within my own culture.”
Hadnot then asked herself if she could make a living teaching English to children overseas and thought ‘why not?’ With her mother’s encouragement, she said all she had to do was continue to follow her mother’s lead.
“I became a full-time preschool teacher in September 2013. At that age, it’s not so much a subject as it is teaching them how to be good human beings,” Hadnot said with a laugh. “As much as we’re teaching them their ABCs, how to count to ten and how to hold scissors correctly, we’re telling them not to throw food. The rules you learn and remember for the rest of your life.”
Until she leaves for Thailand Sept. 29, Hadnot said she will be trying to pack small bits of home, from finding mementos to bring along in her luggage to making new memories in her hometown.
“It’s a lot more emotionally taxing than I originally gave it credit for,” she added. “Some of the people in Gilroy are the kindest I’ve ever met; they’re very welcoming, open and I think that from here, from the teachers I’ve met, the kids I’ve taught and the people I’ve come in contact with, I’ll always remember to be open-minded, inquisitive and passionately curious about everything-just to not let myself become stagnant because there’s so much out there to see and explore.”
Follow Hadnot’s journey by visiting her blog, www.talesofamodernbohemian.blogspot.com or follow her on Instagram at instagram.com/modern_bohemian.
