Senior Project

Reflection

When reflecting on what events and places influenced my teaching path, I feel it’s appropriate to start with the school district I graduated with. There were many teachers that helped influence and push me toward becoming a teacher. The music teachers I had my senior year pushed me by giving me various leadership roles, such as band section leader, helping with Junior high show choir, and other various responsibilities in the music department. I would consider graduating from high school to be the first major event in my path.

 The next set of events and places that influenced me would include graduating from UW Washington County, getting married and having my first child. I learned a lot while getting my associates degree and grew as a person while transitioning into being a true adult. I moved out into my first apartment with my high school sweetheart, got engaged and switched my overall studies from being a music teacher to a general education teacher. I made this change because when I was writing a research paper on the importance of education, I came across an article that discussed the importance of including the arts in the general education classroom. They talked about using songs, plays, artwork and projects to help students make connections to the general education material. I found this to be an amazing concept and one I could master so I switched my mindset and education path. During my last semester of college, I became pregnant with my first child. My fiancé and I planned our wedding and we had our first child shortly after. Becoming a new mom and wife are two of the most influential events that took place. 

I started classes at UW Superior in the Spring a couple months after having my daughter. I did well at first, but as time went on events made things harder to complete the degree. I had another child, and we also bought our first house. Financial struggles forced me to go back to work. I started working at Charter communications and put my education on hold. I did well working at charter for 5 years and I learned a lot about who I am as person. They taught me how to be more confident, goal setting, accountability, and really helped develop me into who I am today. The supervisors I had, and co-workers really pushed me to finish me degree. After I had my third child I decided that it was time to get my life back on track and continue toward my dream of becoming a teacher. 

Even though I loved my co-workers at Charter, I knew I needed to get some classroom experiences. I left them my last year of college and started working as a special education paraprofessional at Mayville Middle School. This is the same school I went to, and I am now working with some of the same teachers that I had when I was in school. 

A few key Personal Beliefs that I have picked up through my journey include, love and logic, PBIS, Growth Mindset and Law of Attraction. I was first introduced to Love and Logic when I was doing field work with my 2^ndgrade teacher. He informed me about the overall theory of giving students choices to help with power struggles. For example, if a student doesn’t want to do their homework you can ask them if they would like to complete their worksheet at their desk or the back table, now or during recess, etc. by giving students choices where overall the desired outcome is still achieved the student still feels in control and will often times go along with one of the options. 

Another concept I was introduced to was Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support or PBIS. The school I was doing field work at, and the school I work at, is a PBIS school. At PBIS schools they often have similar phrases of being “Respectful, Responsible, and Safe”. These behaviors then are reinforced by teachers by pointing out and providing encouragement when they see the desired behaviors. At my school we hand out “Cardinal Cash” when we see a student doing desired behaviors. Students can then use these tickets to purchase items like lunch with a teacher, indoor recess on the smart board or computer, etc. 

The school I work with also spends a lot of time focusing on growth mindset. I was first introduced to this concept very briefly toward the end of my carrier at charter and was excited to see the school using this philosophy. Overall, the main concept of this revolves around being open minded and word choice. One video I recall watching in a classroom was about the power of yet. This demonstrated that a fixed mindset would say “I can’t do this” but a growth mindset would say “I can’t do this yet”. 

The last belief that I would like to share is “The Law of Attraction”. This was also first introduced at the end of my time at Charter and I belief it helped me with getting my current job at Mayville Middle School. The main idea of the law of attraction is you attract the energy that you release into the universe. If you are a positive person and put out positive energy into the world that is what you will attract. The law has three main components, wish, intention, and believe. You need all three in order for the law to work for you. For example, I had a dream of finishing my degree and wished that I could find a way to complete everything. I did the work and declared my intention by working with the school to develop a plan for graduating, following through and completing all the assignments, and believing that there is a way to graduate. I envisioned myself receiving my diploma and was finally able to take a trip up to UW Superior with my Father to attend graduation. I know that this philosophy will also help push me into becoming a teacher.