Before joining the Teacher Corps Michael served as Peace Corps Volunteer for two years as a Secondary School teacher in Cameroon , Africa . Michael lived and taught in the small village of Ngoulemakong , in Southern Cameroon . His classes averaged 37 students. Michael said, “By the end of my service as a Peace Corps volunteer, I knew teaching was the profession which I wanted to pursue.”

The Mississippi Teacher Corps is a two-year program that recruits recent college graduates to teach in critical-shortage areas in the Mississippi Delta, in exchange for a full scholarship for a masters' degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Mississippi . The program was founded in 1989 by Amy Gutman, a Harvard University graduate and Dr. Andy Mullins , current Special Assistant to the Chancellor of Ole Miss. Since 1989 more than 300 participants, reaching an estimated 60,000 students, have taught in critical-needs school districts as part of the Mississippi Teacher Corps.