After working for several years in the corporate world and as a small-business owner, Macy Pleis embarked on a new career three years ago. She became a teacher. “In [my previous] roles, there wasn’t any intrinsic motivation or anything that made me feel like I was having an impact,” she says. “I felt like teaching would help me have another reward besides a monetary reward.” Pleis teaches career and technical education at Jacksonville Middle School in central Arkansas. She says she loves having a daily impact on the more than 100 seventh- and eighth-graders that she sees each day. Making a difference is usually high on the li
