1. Professional Work: I came to teaching through a a life long love of helping others. I have always loved working with and helping the people I am around. I have been teaching for three years now. I taught in Colorado Springs the last three years teaching fifth and first grade general education. Recently, I was hired to teach in Mid-Michigan after moving back with my husband after his years of service in the Army. I will be teaching second grade general education. I am currently enrolled int he special education with Autism endorsement master's program. I hope to continue to work in general education with the masters giving me a better understanding of how to serve the needs of all students.
2. Outside of work I am working hard on becoming reestablished in Mid-Michigan, moving is a long process! Hanging out with our dogs are how much of my free time is spent. We have two rescue dogs who keep us busy with lots of energy. In addition to this I enjoy watching food tv shows and trying to recreate some of the recipes in my own kitchen.
3. My motivations and beliefs as a citizen stem from the same motivations and beliefs that I hold in the classroom. That is creating and supporting equity, kindness, and open mindedness. It is important to me to support equity, kindness and open mindedness because of the impact that have on everyone I interact with. I live out these beliefs by helping my students to understand how they can show this to others. As I work with young students I have a chance to show them how to show these characteristics to peers and others in their community. I am inspired and motivated by the quote by Haim Ginott, “I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”
Hi Nora,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post. I look forward to working with you in this course! And welcome back to MI! Moving is a lot of work, indeed. But being back home must be pretty satisfying. A new grade, a new school, a new home, and also a new endorsement area--that is a lot to take on at once!
I hope the course can build on these interests of yours and meet you somewhere helpful at this stage in your career. Kindness and openness truly are wonderful features to find in a human and are things that school is well positioned to help children with (and as the quote you share notes, also well positioned to do the opposite). Anyone who rescues dogs has a lot of both of these traits!
I look forward to working with you this summer!
Kyle