Palau 1

Patrick Palau

Professor Bown

English 2010

March 31, 2017

Vaha Vainuku

Life as a Student Athlete.

Raised by good parents Vaha Vainuku was born on October 21, 1993. His

parents Siupeli and Hevaha migrated to Utah from the Island of Tonga in

the 1800s to find a better life. There they would have their only child Vaha. I first came

acquainted with him since we were young.

Vaha is now currently a Sophomore football player and full time student at the University

of Utah. He takes 15 credits every semester and on top of that he has football meetings and

mandatory meetings that happen throughout each week. He is now working towards his Masters

Degree.

All this success did not just happen overnight for him. Vaha had a natural passion for

football which drove him to be successful, but never had any passion for his education that

became a stumbling block. He had to learn it the hard way. This was an eye opener for him in his

senior year of High School. He needed good grades to get him to play for Utah or they would

have to remove his full ride scholarship to play.

 Palau 2

(Figure 1 Teacher of the Year. By Lisa Schencker The Salt Lake Tribune)

He then got support from all his teachers, but one specific teacher would change his

whole life. Her name was Mrs. VadenAkker who was a new teacher at the time who just moved

into East in 2009. This teacher assigned extra aid to Vahas education and many other students

who were struggling in school and who each individually did not receive any help. So this

wonderful teacher started to build individual profiles with her students in class and titled it as a

quote I Can Do Hard Things. This allowed the teacher to get to know students in a personal

level with each student and what kind of help they individually needed and most importantly she

held weekly follow ups. One of those students was Vaha Vainuku and because of her amazing

techniques of teaching Mrs. VandenAkker created a profile for him.

Vaha stated in our interview that he personally felt like his needs were being met in

school for the first time. His grades were slowly getting better because of the effort of this

specific teacher who cared enough to assign certain Teacher Assistance to Vahas aid for each
 Palau 3

class. They would meet everyday for an hour whether it be after school or before football

practice. Eventually the more time the TAs spent time to help Vaha, the more progress he was

making rapidly.

By the end of his senior year he went from a 2.0 student to graduating with a 3.2 GPA.

If it wasn't for Mrs. VandenAkkers amazing technique of profiling students to specific TAs, he

believes he would have never graduated High School. Mrs. VandenAkker continues to help

many students like Vaha graduate High School because she did the same exact thing for me at

East High. She was the Teacher of the Year in 2012 and was given the opportunity to give a TED

talk.

(Figure 2. Problem-solver is Teacher of the Year. By Suzanne Ashe Special To The

Tribune)
 Palau 4

Vaha clarifies that there is a little conviction that diverse learning profiles don't exist or,

in the event that they do exist, they have no place in classrooms. Actually every instructor

witnesses different learning methods in various ways. We all have similar experiences when it

comes to learning some are different from others. If we learn through a variety of ways, then we

are applying understanding to every student.

Therefore, having positive impact on lessons should reflect a diversity of instruction to

provide the means of a vision to everyone. If you know that a student builds understanding best

when she can watch a demonstration and then discuss the content and its implications, as a

teacher you should provide that experience. While each student has different approaches to

learning, learning preferences do overlap in groups of students. The result is activities that are

accessible for small and large student groups.

Vaha Vainuku stated that, he strongly believes that we can start using learning profiles

when we know the various ways that each of our students make sense of content. The more we

understand the thought process of our students, the more effective we can ensure their learning

progress. When we have in depth understanding for how our students learn, there is a major

impact on focussing on student needs and planning effective Teacher Assistance. This will help

teachers gather data about students. This is how Vaha has been able to work towards his

Masters Degree and continue to play the sport of football which he loves. Now he says this

saying all the time Education was the real passion of Fooball. -Vaha
 Palau 5

Work Cited:

https://www.utahutes.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=766

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_4k5SABWNb45e_QQFDsad39Gd3Nm9pO4H1d1p5Twe

Bw/edit

http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/news/52687336-78/vandenakker-teacher-students-

class.html.csp

http://www.nnstoy.org/stoy/leigh-vandenakker-2/

http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/news/52387357-78/vandenakker-students-east-tech

niques.html.csp