This week’s staff spotlight is Ms. Tessa Hanson. She teaches elementary music (TK-4) at both the Marcus elementary school and the Remsen elementary school. This is her first year teaching. She grew up in Le Mars, Iowa and continued her education at University of South Dakota for a degree in K-12 Music Education. She wanted to be a teacher because growing up, she loved helping others learn and understand things. She also loved music, so she thought the best thing to do was to combine her passions. What she likes best about teaching is the look on her student’s faces when they finally understand what they learned or are excited to do something in music. Advice she would give to students is “Keep your options and minds open. I never thought I would teach elementary… Now, I can’t imagine teaching anything else! The world has so many opportunities for you. Take advantage of the ones that YOU love!” Something that she wishes someone would have told her in high school is “I wish someone would’ve told me to stop worrying so much about the future. In the end, it will work out if you sincerely try your hardest to make it happen!”