To teach or not to teach; that is the question. But for Ms. Lindsey Welsh, the question was which subject to teach. Her choices were drama or English and her final decision was to have it all by teaching both. Welsh is the drama teacher, play director, and English teacher. As a teen herself, Welsh attended Ralston Valley High School. “I loved it when I was there, and it helped me become a teacher,” she explains. “ I would say it definitely shaped my career.” One of her teachers inspired her to become a teacher.
While Welsh was at Ralston Valley, she acted in a couple of shows: “ I was in the musicals all four years that I was there.” Acting in the plays was her favorite memory because “that was when I bonded with the people I am still really good friends with. You just get to know people on a totally different level when you are on a team.”
She became interested in acting at a very young age, “I got into drama the earliest I could do it. We did plays and musicals at my church when I was six. I discovered really early on that I had a knack for the dramatic.” Her favorite play she acted in was the “Curious Savage” because “I got to really play a character that took me out of my comfort zone, and I think that we put on a really great show.”
When she reached high school, she retained her interest in drama, but also started to develop an interest in teaching and in college, Welsh explains that “I focused only on my English core.” Arvada West happens to be Welsh’s third school she has taught at and this is her fourth year of teaching. “I have taught at Loveland High, and then I taught at Mountain View, and then I [began] here [at A-West]. I would have to say the best would have to be A-West just because of the opportunities and getting to teach eleventh grade and drama.”
Yet, this English teacher did not always want to be a teacher. “When I was really young I wanted to be a veterinarian because I really like dogs. Then I figured out that veterinarians do a lot with science and math and they have to go to school for years and years… if I did not teach I wanted to be a counselor or a psychologist.”
Welsh introduces herself to new students using three main identifiers: One, her name and that she teaches English; two, that she is also the drama teacher; and third, her brother is a member of The Fray. Dave Welsh, her older brother, is he lead guitarist for The Fray. “I would say my first year at Colorado State University was the year that their first album came out. So I think that would have been the year that I felt the most influenced by the fact that I have a famous brother. I think after that people were all like ‘Oh my God, that is so cool,’ but I do not feel like I am that affected by it. People ask me for autographs but not nearly as much as they did.” Surprisingly Welsh has never acted professionally or been in one of The Fray’s music videos, “…but my mother has. My mom is in one of their videos as an extra. You see her maybe point five seconds.”
Welsh happens to love teaching even with tough students; she plans on being a teacher as long as she can. To her, it is not right to call teaching a job or call drama a hobby. For her, these paths are her passion.
