About the Author

My name is Aaron Brumbach. I was born in Redmond, Oregon. I am a husband, father, son, friend, and an aspiring teacher. I am not perfect in any of these areas, but my desire is to improve at all of them every day. I am an eternal optimist. This does not mean I am not a realist, rather, I feel that life is a journey and the attitude people have during their journey determines their destination.

Growing up in Central Oregon left me with many great memories and life experiences that I will cherish until my dying days. However, I grew up poor, and I found myself struggling in school, as well as at home. My family was homeless for a period during my elementary years, and education became secondary in my household. Out of four siblings, only one of us would go on to finish high school. During my sophomore year of high school, my father went to jail, and then my brother, who I was very close to, went to prison. The only thing that kept me in school was basketball, and I when I failed to make the team as a sophomore, I no longer had a desire to stay in school. I dropped out, pointed my middle finger to the system and never looked back.

We never affiliated with people who were educated growing up, not by choice, but life has a way of keeping the classes separated. I started working in construction at the age of 17, and I still work in construction . Even though I always felt like life was not fair, I stayed optimistic. I worked hard and had some financial success, and even though it was not a lot, it felt like it during the time. When you grow up with nothing, money has an effect that people who have had it cannot understand. Helping your mother pay her bills is empowering; however, when you come from poverty, easy come easy go.

During this period of my life I met a woman whom would go on to be my wife, and everything started to change. She was smart, not a little smart, the valedictorian of her high school smart. We were a match made in some deranged version of heaven. As the years passed, so did my content with the life I created for myself. I loved my wife, but I wanted more for myself on a personal level. She went on to become a teacher. The people we associated with started to include those of a class I always felt uncomfortable around. I felt judged. Even though that was not their intention, educated people in society have a tendency to make uneducated people  feel inferior, especially a high school dropout. I felt the need to prove myself.  I wanted to like the person I was when I lied awake at night. I wanted to show that I was not just a statistic. I wanted to make sure that kids like me knew they were not inferior. That is when I decided to go to college to be a teacher, and my goal was to get into the UOTeach program when it was all said and done.

I started college at 27. I was terrified. Walking through the doors into Tillamook Bay Community College felt like swimming into the belly of a whale. I was in a world that left me feeling alone, vulnerable, and unsure of which end I was going to come out on. All I knew was that I could not fail. I watched hours of YouTube videos to try and to learn about grammar and math. I dedicated myself to what I was doing. My wife would look at my papers and cringe, and she was hard on me, but her prodding helped mold me into a confident writer. I finished my first term with straight A's.  I went on to finish my Associate of Arts with a 4.0 GPA and a full-ride scholarship, and to top it all off, we had created a beautiful family.


Having a full-ride scholarship opened doors in ways I never imagined. We made the decision to move to Eugene to finish out my schooling. It was a scary proposal. My wife left a job she enjoyed, and having a family with two young kids is not the time to fall back into financial struggles. Fortunately, my wife and I both come from backgrounds where financial struggles were par-for-the-course, so on we went. She found a full-time job a week before school started, and things were off to a good start. I started at the University of Oregon and quickly found myself overwhelmed. Community college did not prepare me for life in a university and my "precious" 4.0 went out the window my very first term. This lit a fire under me to prove myself. My undergrad pushed. I pushed back. The process helped me grow in so many ways that I remain eternally grateful for my time as an undergrad at UofO.

Last April, I got the email I had dreamed about since the very first day I started college. It was from the UO School of Education. I knew it was the "one" I set out to receive nearly four years prior, and I stared at it. Once again, I was terrified. I do not know how long I looked at the email, but in moments like those, does time really exist? When I opened it, I had been accepted into the program. I cried. I called my wife and then we both cried. Here I am, and my journey is just beginning. All I know is I am not who I was, but who I was, remains critical part of forming who I want to be, especially as a teacher.