JOURNEY AS A TEACHER
“I kind of stumbled into it. I just met somebody who was doing creative public art projects with kids and started helping out with him (…) And then I realized that I'm pretty good at working with kids and I enjoy it. I had always wanted to teach English and so I got a job as a teaching assistant with an adult English language program and found that I liked that a lot. So then I did the certification to become an adult English language teacher in [another state] and only got to actually run my own class for one year before moving to [my current state], but really, really, really enjoyed it. I worked with an adult and family program, so the kids would come for after-school time and the parents would come at the same time—so when I first started with that program, I got to work with both the kids and the adults of different families, which was so fun. And then I also worked with the adult program, which was for adults who are working full time (…) I got pretty positive feedback on my class from students and from administrators (…) And I really, really enjoyed lesson planning—coming up with cool ways to get them to talk to each other about different things.”
“Then I moved to [my current state] and (….) decided to actually get the teaching certification (…)”
“Then I worked as a teaching assistant (…) in a self-contained classroom for students with a vast array of different disabilities and really, really liked the kids a lot—and was pretty good at figuring out how to work with them (…) I really enjoyed the challenge of coming up with creative ways of engaging them in learning, and I liked the freedom and the flexibility that came with working with small groups where I could really differentiate and really tailor it to their interests and their needs, and find creative ways for them to get involved.”
“I worked at [another school] for six months as a 5th grade elementary teacher—and I am not a classroom teacher. I learned that very well while doing that. That was very, very clear to me. Even my principal was like, ‘You're great and you would be much better working with a 15:1:1 program where you're doing hands-on learning and have more flexibility with the curriculum’.”
“Then I went back (…) and worked as a T.A. again. After I'd been there for just two weeks, a Special Ed position opened and even though I wasn't fully certified yet, I applied, and they accepted me and let me continue to work on my certification while I was teaching. And I've been in that position working with 7th and 8th grade students for the last seven years.”
MY PRACTICE AS A TEACHER
“Very, very student-centered. A lot of my practice involves figuring out what things kids like and figuring out what things kids don't like, and figuring out what things feel hard to kids and what things feel interesting to individual students—and then trying to figure out how I can make their day the most pleasant possible day, given the constraints of being in other people's classrooms for a lot of the day and [neither] of us always having control over the environment (…) Working together with the students to discuss, ‘These are the things we can control, these are the things that we can't control. What are we able to do to make this feel better?’”
“Being flexible with time. Using our time, whenever we're separate from the class, to review things in a way that makes more sense for them (…)”