McKenzee Young is an American Sign Language (ASL) and English teacher at Hillcrest High School. It is currently her second year teaching ASL and her first year teaching English.
She chose to be a teacher because she enjoyed helping people learn and seeing them start understanding a concept that they before couldn’t grasp.
“It’s continued to be rewarding to have fun. It’s also fun to be passionate about something and be able to share that with other people and be like, guys, look at how cool this is!”
Young also did substitute teaching for three years. She had taken a break in the middle because she was in college. She also did stuff in the community on and off for four years.
For her college experience, Young started out at Utah State University (USU) up in Logan, Utah. “I loved it up there. It was awesome. And then I transferred to Utah Valley University (UVU) to finish.”
She did three years at USU and two and a half years at UVU. She chose USU at first because they had a program she really liked—both English and ASL. “It was also close enough to home that I could still go visit but far enough away that I could not be home.” She transferred to UVU because she switched her major to ASL. “It also worked out well because my husband got a job down south.”
ASL came of interest to Young when she started in high school. “I loved it when I was in high school, and from there, I kept wanting to learn more and more, so I just kept doing it.”
Outside of school, Young is an avid reader. She rereads her favorite books when she doesn’t have time to start a new one. She also enjoys running and being outside. Harry Potter is one of her favorite series, as well as Regency romance novels, which are also her favorite.
Hillcrest fell into Young’s lap when she was a student teacher—she was assigned to Hillcrest. “I loved being in the school. I felt like the school had a really good vibe. I love the students, I have great colleagues, and I really wanted to stay. I loved being able to work with other people who worked hard, who I enjoyed spending time with, and with amazing students.”
When Young comes across a hard day teaching, what motivates her are the good days that she has. “I know it sounds cliché, but you have those good days where you’re like, oh my gosh, that was awesome, and then you have those days where you are like, okay, I’m done.” Another thing that motivates her is her colleagues, and she has friends at the school who she can talk to, and they help make it worth it.
On the days that she teaches English, she moves classrooms all day. She claims it’s not ideal, but it’s actually really fun. “It’s actually been kind of fun to be in different classrooms and see how different teachers have set up their classrooms.”
Young loves being at Hillcrest and finds it awesome to be there.
