Welcome
Hello parents and students! Welcome to my website. On this page you will be able to find a variety of resources and information pertaining to the upcoming school year. Below you can find out a bit more about me, and what my philosophy of education is. Contained on this website will be a calendar with upcoming events, as well as weekly updates where you can find out what your kids have been up to. A weekly update will be posted every Friday giving you a summary of what we are learning, as well as upcoming events. There is also a page of parent and student resources which will continue to be developed throughout the year. These pages will contain a variety of articles and documents that may benefit you and your child with their academic learning and social-emotional well-being. I look forward to developing meaningful relationships with you and your children as the year progresses, and I am so excited for what this year has in store!
- Emily Hekma
ABout Me
Hello! I am Emily Hekma, and I can't wait to teach your 3rd grader this year! You can read below to learn a little bit about me.
I am from Minnesota, but I have lived in Wheaton for the past 7 years. I am a Minnesota girl through and through, so I love the outdoors, hiking, swimming, running, boating, and almost anything that's related to the water. I moved to Wheaton 8 years ago to attend Wheaton College for my undergraduate degree. At Wheaton, I studied Elementary Education, Bilingual Education, ESL, and Spanish. I love reading and writing (in both Spanish and English), but I am also a complete science and math nerd (we will have a lot of fun with those subjects this year!).
My husband is a teacher in Glen Ellyn, and we celebrated our two year anniversary this past June. In my free time, I enjoy running, biking, painting, reading, drinking coffee, and traveling with my husband.
Before I came to Whittier I student-taught in a 3rd grade bilingual classroom in West Chicago, and I taught at a Spanish Immersion school in Minnesota. This is my fifth year at Whittier, and I can't wait to see what the year has in store for us!
My Philosophy of Education
"Today is a new day. What we do today will affect our lives, and the lives of those around us. We will do our best to include the excluded, support the struggling, and show kindness to everyone, no matter how different they are from us."
I believe that a classroom should be two places - a place of safety, and a place of struggle. First, students should always feel safe and cared for when they are in my classroom. We work very hard at the beginning of the year to establish a classroom culture where students enjoy coming into school every day. I stress to students that while they don't have to be best friends with everyone in our room, they do need to show kindness and respect to everyone. I attempt to model what patience, empathy, and care for one another look like, and I expect students to follow that example. I am a firm believer that the social-emotional well-being of a child is going to directly impact their academics. Teaching kids to take care of their emotional and mental health is paramount to ensuring academic success as well.
Second, once students feel safe within the classroom environment, that means they will be willing to try, and fail, within a classroom environment. Failure, and learning how to deal with that failure, is critical for students to experience at an early age. Growth mindset language is used often in my classroom, and I encourage students to try new things, take risks, and welcome failure. Failure is welcomed and expected in my classroom, as it is the only way we truly grow. I have high academic expectations in my room, and I try to create a culture where students strive for those expectations, but know that when they fail, that it is not a time to pout, or become discouraged or distracted, but rather to evaluate what happened, make an action plan, and try again. As a teacher, my job is to provide the appropriate scaffolds and supports to bring a task or skill just within reach of a student. My teaching is highly individualized and targeted to ensure that each child in my room is appropriately challenged to fit where he or she is at in their learning journey.