Loving her job

“In five years, I imagine myself still teaching both the AVID elective class and English.  I’ll be pursuing my Master’s Degree in something; I’m just waiting for the educational epiphany that’ll guide me towards what I want to pursue that degree in to occur!

Four adjectives that describe me would be invested, goofy, passionate and a little bit strange. My biggest weakness this year has probably been figuring out how to delegate my time in regards to preparing for lessons and grading outside of the school day. Some weekends, I’ve realized that I spent the entire time doing school work or grading, and then I’m stressed out about my lesson plans. Other weekends, I’ve realized that I spent so much time on lesson plans that I’ve completely fallen behind in grading. I’m hoping that the wisdom to find that happy medium between balancing both tasks will come to me in time.

Outside of my classroom, I love to distance run and be around soccer. In high school, I cross-country skied and played four years of varsity soccer.  In college, I also played soccer, and I was the president of our UW-La Crosse Student Athletic Advisory Committee.

I knew that I wanted to be a teacher when I was a junior in high school.  Once I was mature enough to appreciate how hard my teachers worked and how much I genuinely enjoyed their company, I knew that I could and should be someone who creates that same experience for high school students someday.  I remember the way I hated and struggled with science and math classes but looked forward to going in for extra help because my teachers were always ready to help me figure things out, cracking jokes and even brewing me a pot of coffee along the way!

I think that I enjoy teaching high school students because they’re old enough to really keep me on my toes. Students are generally really witty and have developed a great sense of humor by high school, but they’re also old enough to really start to think in unique and meaningful ways. I love teaching in an environment where we can joke one minute and have really meaningful thoughtful conversations about Shakespeare or Harper Lee the next.

At a professional development opportunity I attended this school year, we learned about something called “will drivers.” In short, the will-driver philosophy believes that every person is most intensely motivated by one of four things: mastery, autonomy, purpose or belonging.  After personal reflection around each category, I’ve realized that my own personal will driver is belonging, which indicates that I am most motivated to work hard because I value relationships with the people around me, and I really think that this strengthens my teaching practice.  I’m incredibly passionate about literature and the things it can teach us or expose to us about the human experience, but at the end of the day, I always find myself driving home thinking about specific and meaningful conversations I had with students or fellow teachers during that particular day. I would hope that students say that they walk into my room on any given day knowing that I’m genuinely excited to see them and work with them.