Head of the Class
By Bill Spring
David Ambrose always thought his future would be on the front lines. Instead, he's at the front of a classroom.
"All the males in my family have been in the military," explains Ambrose, 30. "My father was in the Air Force, and both my grandfathers and my uncle served as well."
From an early age, Ambrose dreamed of following in his family's footsteps; however, a heart condition discovered while he was in college prevented him from entering pilot training and special operations. He set aside his dream of military service rather than see it compromised.
After graduating from college in 1995, Ambrose earned a law degree three years later.
"I worked for a small law firm right after I passed the bar," says Ambrose, "and I wasn't enamored with it."
A year-long internship at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, a global business management service, convinced Ambrose that he was more cut out for the business world. Soon he was working as a legal associate and tax specialist for Ernst & Young. The pay was great and the projects were big, but it wasn't long before Ambrose was once again looking for something more fulfilling.
"I liked both companies a lot," he explains. "They had really good people, but the work didn't match my personality. I found that I'm not much good at sitting behind a desk all day, crunching out numbers and papers."
What was missing was a sense of helping people or giving back to the community. "Everybody in my family had been in the service side, most of them government employees, contributing to our country."
Ambrose decided that he, too, would serve, and after toying with the idea of working for the police or the FBI, he chose to make his contribution as a teacher.
Ambrose had some teaching experience as a soccer coach but was unsure of how to make the jump from the office to the classroom. "What I found most helpful," he says, "was talking to other attorneys who left the law to become teachers. They told me how rewarding it is, and how difficult it is."
In early 2002, Ambrose started the ball rolling by sending a resume to the DC Teaching Fellows (www.dcteachingfellows.org), a program of Washington, D.C., public schools that encourages top professionals from a variety of fields to become teachers. Accepted as a fellow, Ambrose received education, training and the support of a network of experienced teachers.
Because his wife Julie earned a respectable salary as an attorney, Ambrose was able to leave Ernst & Young before he had a teaching position. His co-workers and managers were very supportive of his decision, and he faced the career move with more excitement than fear. "Growing up in the military, you're always moving around," he says, "so change is kind of central to my life."
After 11 weeks of university courses, Ambrose faced a small group of special education students alongside an experienced teacher. It was a summer session. "I was a little scared," he says. "Walking into a totally new environment is intimidating, but the kids were awesome."
Because of his own experiences in elementary school, Ambrose decided that he wanted to teach students with developmental and social disabilities.
"I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Although my mom helped me a lot, I had a pretty tough time in the classroom. I thought, 'If I can make it, these kids can, too.' "
By the end of the summer session, Ambrose knew he had made the right career decision.
DC Teaching Fellows eventually placed Ambrose at Anthony Bowen Elementary School, where he teaches language arts and math to special ed kids in fourth through sixth grade. He quickly saw that his chief problem was one of discipline. "The kids are wonderful, but they have misconceptions about how to behave around other people."
After struggling with solutions, he and his educational aide, Crystal Budd, 31, devised a reward system to teach the students how to behave. Using homemade coins, Ambrose fines his students for bad behavior and honors them when they are good. So far, it's working out, but every day brings new challenges.
Ambrose believes that good teachers have two basic qualities: compassion and patience. When asked if he thinks he's a good teacher, he replies, "No. But I think I'm becoming a good teacher."
As for his former career in law and business, he feels it helped him gain the capacity for critical thought, to judge his teaching strategies and improve them. He still deals with paperwork and crunching numbers, but, as he puts it, "The satisfaction I get from working with the kids is greater than in the business world."
Ambrose encourages anyone looking for a career change to consider teaching, as long as they like being around kids. "The reward of teaching is seeing a child actually understand what you're trying to get across, and then get it right on a test."
In a way, Ambrose is the soldier he always wanted to be; he's just fighting for a different, and no less noble, cause.
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