Jordan Egler never planned on becoming a teacher. At various points, he considered being a rock star, a stuntman, maybe even a chief. “The kind of titles that seem noble when you’re ten,” he says, grinning. But destiny, in the form of family legacy and a well-timed nudge from a bandmate, had other plans.

Both of Jordan’s parents taught in Macomb—his father at WIU, his mother in the English department at Macomb High School. Still, he wasn’t drawn to the profession at first. He just knew that teachers got summers off, and that sounded like a pretty good perk.

The real beginning came not in a classroom, but in a band practice. His keyboard player mentioned a job opening with the West Central Illinois Special Education Cooperative. It was one-on-one work with a student. Jordan applied on a whim—and got the job. “I wasn’t even sure I wanted it,” he admits. But the connection he found with students was immediate and unmistakable.

He brought something different to the room: playfulness, authenticity, and a refusal to underestimate his students. “I still had a little bit of kid in me,” he says. “I didn’t talk down to them. I played tag at recess. I treated them like people worth listening to.”

That approach stuck.

What followed was 15 years at Project Insight, a special ed day school for students with behavioral disorders. Jordan wore every hat imaginable—teaching math, science, PE, technology, history. He wrote his own curriculum, mostly because no one gave him one. “I didn’t even know what curriculum meant,” he says. “I just knew those textbook word problems were boring.”

So he rewrote them.

Instead of calculating triangle dimensions for garden plots, students used the Pythagorean theorem to measure a diagonal escape route from imaginary foes. “You’re running from house to house,” he’d tell them. “Now calculate how far you have to go.” He built scenarios with Nerf guns, basements, and other devices of adolescent intrigue—not to sensationalize, but to engage.

That’s the thing about Jordan: he teaches like a jazz musician. Improvisational, intuitive, and responsive to the room.

And the kids? They loved him.

“Even now,” he says, “if I see a former student in the grocery store, they still yell out, ‘Mr. Egler!’ That’s how I know.”

After years at Project Insight, he took a position at Edison Elementary, where he now works in a variety of special education roles. “In this district,” he says, “there’s more structure. More paperwork. But I also feel like it gave legitimacy to the way I do things.”

Jordan describes himself as a Swiss army knife in the building—someone who adapts to the student and the moment. He’s in inclusion classrooms, he’s managing reading sessions, he’s navigating IEPs and executive functioning challenges. His gift is not just versatility—it’s vision. He sees kids for who they can be, not just who they appear to be on paper.

“I think kids need adults they can count on,” he says. “Ones who make them feel safe. Some kids already have that at home. Some don’t. But they all need it.”

His approach is personal, human. He compliments a student’s new hairstyle. He jokes gently. He answers questions with care, even if they interrupt an interview. “You get to know people,” he says. “And when you have a personal connection, that’s when you can apply a little bit of personal leverage with motivation.”

That balance—between structure and spontaneity, between rules and relationship—is what makes Jordan Egler invaluable.

“I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the weight of it,” he admits. “But then I remember those conversations, the Nerf gun story problems, the math with meaning. I remember that they let me teach them. And I’m thankful.”

In a system that runs on standards and accountability, Jordan reminds us that relationship is the real engine—and that the best educators aren’t always the ones who planned to be there. Sometimes, they’re the ones who showed up, got curious, stayed flexible, and kept making it matter.

And in doing so, they give their students the most important lesson of all: You are worth showing up for.