‘Patience is the Key’: Maya Azar’s Approach to Career Growth and Teaching Children

“When I was in fifth grade, my language arts teacher would take us down to the kindergarten class with books and…she would set us up with 5 kindergarten students, so it was like you were the teacher with five students that you’re reading a story to twice a week,” Maya Azar remembered. “I liked that. I felt like. I was in control, you know what I mean? As a 10-year-old, I can get these people to listen to me. I can get these people interested in what I’m saying.” 

It was that feeling — and that fifth-grade teacher — that helped Azar decide on a career path at a young age. 

“From that day, I started telling people that I wanted to be a teacher when I grow up,” she said. 

The sense of responsibility and connection from the reading exercise led Azar to a full-circle moment when she was, finally, a professional teacher. 

“When I started in the school that I work at now, I figured out that she’s the music teacher here, and so I went to her and we started crying,” Azar said, noting that the teacher who inspired her was on the verge of retirement and gifted her a copy of Schoolhouse Rock that Azar had watched in her class as a child. 

A Class of Her Own 

Today, Azar is building her own legacy in the classroom. Her formal teaching career began in November 2021 when she accepted a role as a long-term substitute in Kuwait. She spent the rest of the school year finding her footing before transitioning into an early childhood education role teaching kindergarten 2 (KG2) in the same school. 

While she held a bachelor’s degree in English literature — a degree she “really wanted” — Azar knew she needed specific pedagogical training if she was going to build a successful teaching career. Once she established herself in the KG2 classroom, she started researching ways to earn a formal teaching certificate to sharpen her skills and expand her career opportunities. During this research, she also received organic endorsements from people in her life suggesting she look at Moreland University’s 9-month, 100% online TEACH-NOW Teacher Preparation Certificate Program.

“Interestingly enough, my neighbor did her teaching certificate at Moreland, as well, so that encouraged me,” she recalled. 

The principal of Azar’s school also recommended TEACH-NOW. As her mentor, the principal had already been instrumental in pushing Azar to move from a teaching assistant role into the long-term substitute teaching position that became her first official experience leading a classroom, so giving Moreland his stamp of approval was the final piece of encouragement Azar needed to enroll in TEACH-NOW. 

She began the program in January 2023 and quickly discovered the curriculum was highly practical and engaging, featuring live video classes that encouraged active dialogue. As Azar learned new strategies — and as she was empowered by her principal to try new instructional techniques — she immediately tested them in her classroom. Azar’s keen eye for time management allowed her to measure the effectiveness of her new techniques in real-time while also finding other pockets of time during the day she could use to complete coursework.

“All you can do is just manage your time. Whenever I would have half an hour to myself during school, when I send the kids to special [classes] or when they have lunch, I would just open up my laptop and do something,” Azar said. “I figured out that it works for me.”

Azar believes this approach could be successful for other working teachers as they pursue certification, too, due to TEACH-NOW’s intentional focus on implementation over research.

“The good thing about Moreland is that…it helps you study and implement more than like actually sitting on your laptop and researching and reading articles and writing essays, which I hate, by the way,” she said with a smile. “It just helps you. It’s more hands-on.”

Azar enjoyed the Moreland experience so much that, before starting the clinical learning (student teaching) portion of TEACH-NOW in the summer of 2023, she decided she wanted to enroll in the M.Ed. Add-On program that allows candidates to earn a master’s degree in education in as little as three additional months. 

The structure of the program allowed her to seamlessly transition from earning her teaching certificate into her master’s coursework while keeping her full-time teaching job.

Building a Global Network 

One of the most rewarding aspects of Azar’s educational journey was the opportunity to collaborate with a diverse, global cohort of current and aspiring teachers — a feature Moreland purposely includes as a way to connect educators from around the world and allow them to share unique insights from their respective schools and cultures. 

“During my master’s program, I had people in my cohort from Shanghai and Germany,” she said. “You [get to] see the school systems and procedures and protocols and how they do things differently, and you get ideas and then you implement them into your schools.”

This worldwide knowledge transfer further informed Azar’s teaching style as she transitioned from teaching kindergarten to second grade in 2025. This shift aligned with her original career plan of working with an older group of students that still falls within the realm of early childhood education.

Azar still uses resources from Moreland University to plan lessons and troubleshoot classroom challenges, frequently reviewing her past assignments and course materials to refresh her memory on specific strategies and ensuring she brings her best self to her students every day.

Empowering Future Teachers 

As Azar continues to build her own teaching career, she advises aspiring educators to focus on one trait, in particular.

“Patience is the key, especially when you are working with kids,” she said. “You need to be patient with yourself, as well.”

There is also one other recommendation she makes to teachers seeking new credentials and career advancement. 

“I will always recommend Moreland,” Azar noted. “I really, really liked the program. I liked the system. I liked the procedure of how it goes and the time span, as well. It plays a big part — the 9-month [or] 12-month time span. And let’s be fair, the fees — it’s not overpriced.”

Are you ready to take the next step in your own teaching career? Explore Moreland University’s flexible, online teacher preparation program and master’s degrees today to discover how you can level up your skills and create a fulfilling professional life as a teacher. It takes less than 15 minutes to complete your free application.