Ashley Mika Ito-Macion is an educator at Kanoelani Elementary School in Honolulu and a proud Hawai‘i State Teacher Fellow. She has a passion for helping her colleagues and working to create opportunities for educator growth. Ashley also was recently awarded Teacher of the Year for the Pearl City-Waipahu Complex, which is in Honolulu, Hawai'i! She is also the founder of the Hawaiʻi Distance Learning Forum For the University of Hawai'i at Manoa College of Education Ashley writes: This is one of my favorite funny stories. In my senior year of high school, I had to take an extra class. I chose Early Childhood Education, thinking it was the class where you got to take care of a fake baby. It turned out to be a class about creating lesson plans and working with students. I went home to tell my mom that I think I found my passion in teaching. She also mentioned that she wanted to become an educator when she was younger. I got this overwhelming feeling and just knew I was meant to be an educator. Editing provided by Evan Kurohara, music by Michael Sloan.