My Experiences with Children

I first knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was a junior in high school. I enrolled in a class called CAL Tutor, which stood for Cross Age Learning. For an hour every day, I drove to a nearby elementary school and shadowed a second grade teacher at Rosewood Elementary. After a few months, she was sending me home with homework to correct, math packets to recreate, and eventually let me take over the morning review work with the class. After having some experiences of being in the role of a teacher, I completely fell in love with it and have been determined to get my degree ever since. Once I started college at Grand Valley State University, I was hired at Bowen Elementary School in Kentwood. There, I was an afterschool activity leader in the City of Kentwoods ARCH program. I was the fifth grade leader, having a group of 15-20 students on average. Every day, we started out with serving the students their dinner in the cafeteria. Shortly afterward, we would spend an academic hour in the students homerooms doing homework. This often took collaboration between the classroom teacher and I to better help the students who were struggling. After academic hour, the other ARCH leaders and I were responsible for leading group activities with the students. Within a week, we had to cover certain expectations that included physical activity, technological practice and arts and crafts time. I spent a year and half at Bowen Elementary and my experiences with the students has taught me more than any class has thus far. Student conflicts and academic struggles were often a regular issue, and I developed as a teacher as I confronted those struggles. My supervisor at the time was the most incredible role model to look up to. Her close relationships with the kids allowed her to organize the entire program day by day according to what best fit the kids interests. I took a lot away from her as I became closer to my own students and created new lessons in hopes to capture their passions. As my class schedule at Grand Valley got heavier, I reluctantly had to resign from Bowen Elementary due to the long commute and time commitment. However, I hope to be back someday working with the amazing staff and students there. Since then, I have had many opportunities to work with students through my classes at Grand Valley. I have tutored students at Sibley Elementary in Grand Rapids Public Schools, Rosewood Elementary and Bursley Elementary in Jenison, Gladiola Elementary in Wyoming, and Springview Elementary in Allendale. In addition, I am currently tutoring a Jenison high school junior and have been for the past year now. I was hired by his parents and visit their home every week to tutor him on subjects that range from chemistry to government, algebra or Spanish-basically whatever he needs help on at the time. This has made me quite versatile in my subject knowledge and teaching strategies. I often times make study guides and practice tests myself based off of previous knowledge or research, and am often in contact with his high school teachers to receive materials when I can. During each experience I share with a student, I learn something new about myself as a teacher. I have come very far in my time here at Grand Valley, and expect to be much further by the time I am qualified to teach.