Carter: All right. This is Carter Sparks with Youth Engaged 4 Change. And, today is my first podcast. We have a special guest. It is my drama teacher, my favorite teacher, Miss. Jana Harrison. We will be asking her a few questions. All right. First question. What inspired you to be a drama teacher?

Jana: When I was in high school I was involved in the Fine Arts program and I got a lot of friends and friendships out of being in drama. I realized I wanted to teach it, and spend the rest of my life doing it.

Carter: I've noticed ... Well, I've been drama that I've made a lot of friends and contacts. How many years of schooling did it take to become a drama teacher?

Jana: It took me five years, but it would normally take four. I took some time off because I was also traveling, doing some productions. But, it was a four-year Bachelor's degree, and I graduated from UCL. The thing I thought I was going to be for most of the time was I thought I was going to grow up and be a lawyer. And like I said, when I got into high school the Arts seemed like a better fit for me than actually doing law.

Carter: Yeah, I was like drama and law are kind of far away from each other.

Jana: They are very different, very different.

Carter: Have you always been into drama? Whenever like middle school, high school, all through your childhood?

Jana: I have not, actually. My family did not have any involvement in drama, and I was pretty scared to do it when I got involved in it in high school. One of my counselors had recommended that I take it, and it seemed very different, but my personality seemed to mix really well in a drama classroom. I was very outgoing and excitable, so it made sense. So, it was about, it would have been seventh grade of middle school then when I first started getting into drama and the arts.

Carter: What were you doing to work towards your goal of being a drama teacher when you were my age?

Jana: When I was your age I was mostly concerned at that point of trying to figure out how to teach. So, most of what I did was I early on ended up being kind of like a class leader in my room, so I was both in a drama class and in my debate classroom my teacher used to let me lead exercises or activities in the class to kind of get access to some opportunity to do that. By my senior year I was made a captain of my competitive debate and drama team, so I helped create events and schedule those and work in the auditorium, as well as back stage with the productions that were done for the school.

Carter: So, that's kind of like what you let me do, and stuff, how I'm kind of the assistant drama person?

Jana: You could say ... I would say that you, as well as some of the other students, have been ... Basically, you and a few others are the ones that run our auditorium. On the student end I very much liked the system that I came from when I was a kid, or when I was in high school, excuse me, where the teacher let us as students kind of be the leaders that set the standards for our peers. I believe in that system, and I very much, when I came here to this school, was received with the same way that I was told that you and two other students were very trustworthy, responsible, and that you all had been trained to, basically, do the same things that an adult could do in a theater environment. And that was awesome, and I found out that that matched not only with my ideas but what was going on.