School and Community Winter 2024

every one of their students. The environment a child is learning in is so incredibly important. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs tells us that students need to be fed, hydrated and have shelter to achieve the best learning possible. If a child is hungry, they are most likely going to be focused more on the next time they are going to be able to eat. If the child is dehydrated, they won’t have the energy to put in all of their effort and will be more focused on their muscle aches, headaches or even stomach aches than they are on the lesson. It is important to make sure the children are taken care of. I want to be that safe place for students. I want to be the trusted adult children feel they can turn to when they are in an unsafe situation to know they have someone on their side. –Iszabella Vanous I want to be a teacher to guide kids and their creativity. I want to be able to see the light bulb turn on when kids finally understand something that took them a while to get. I want to be an outlet for kids who feel they have nobody to go to when things in their life are putting a heavy toll on them. I want to be the reason kids show up to school every day and are excited to learn. To help kids understand, know and realize that they are important and they don’t all have to be on the same level of learning that they are perfect just the way they are. I want to make a change in the education and learning environment. When I was in elementary school, I felt like it was one of the roughest and one of the best lessons I could have experienced. Every day in class, I felt like there were two sides to the classroom. One side was filled with kids who had perfect attendance, perfect grades and perfect lives. On the other side, there were the kids who struggled with learning, didn’t have the most perfect attendance and were just lower than others. For me, I was on the lower end. I was a kid who struggled with learning things right off the bat. Things never just came easy to me, I had to truly focus and have help to simply understand how to get a solution to the problem. It became hard; I wanted to give up trying because when you are a struggling student, everyone knows that. It was either you were smart and the teachers praised you and favorited you, or you struggled to learn and you were just a problem to have in the classroom. There was no in-between. This drove me to want to do better and be better. So that nobody has to feel like I did, because no student should have to feel lower than others just because they don’t get something right away. The goal of any teacher should be to put the kids first. To make sure the kids feel like they belong. I want to make the change so that future students want to come to school every day, so that they are excited to learn and maybe they can be excited about the future and what they can make a change on. –Christine Gerling T he purpose of education is to help others seek knowledge. Find and explore what they want to do when they get older, help them find something that they love and build off of that. Which is why I want to teach. I want to help kids find something they’re passionate about. Find something that makes them have a spark. That makes them want to continue to learn and show up, that motivates them. When they speak about their passion, it seems like the world lights up. Which motivates the students. If they have a goal, something they tend to be passionate about, they’ll continue to want to learn for that passion. If something is loved that much, they’ll work towards that

goal. That’s how students learn. If they have motivation, they’ll learn. You don’t want to learn if there is nothing to work toward. In the end you learn to find that passion, and that passion creates motivation and then that’ll make you learn. A repeating cycle in my opinion. Always learning for your passion. -Victoria Johnson D uring my sophomore year of high school, I thought back to my fourth grade year of school. I remember what my fourth grade teacher did for me during my time in her class. She pushed me to be better because she saw my potential more than I was able to at the time. She inspired me to become a teacher to help kids like she helped me. Furthermore, she was one of the most effective teachers I have ever had. She was patient, kind and caring. She made me persevere in challenges I thought were too hard for me. I believe students learn best when they are challenged to learn something new. They need something that can give them motivation to do the work, so they can learn. An effective teacher needs to know what their students are capable of doing, so they can give them something that they are challenged by but not impossible for them to do. Students require a place that is safe for them to learn. A classroom needs to be safe, and free of judgment and distractions. They need a place that allows them to learn and be able to be themselves while doing it. My fourth grade teacher made it where I wanted to learn in her classroom, even when I didn’t think the things I was learning were essential. She challenged me to do my best when I didn’t feel like doing the work. She made sure that I felt safe learning in her classroom. She showed me that there was a purpose for becoming educated, even when I didn’t see it myself. Now I know what the purpose of becoming educated is. It is being able to make educated decisions about your life, and making it where everyone is given the opportunity to follow their dreams. I learned that I can do so much more than I would’ve ever thought possible by being able to have the privilege of having an education. –Emily Young

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