Karsen Johnson

My name is Karsen and I was born and raised in Chesapeake, Virginia. I graduated from Great Bridge High School in 2018 and I am proud to be a wildcat! I am 21 years old and just transferred to ODU this semester to complete my Bachelor's Degree in Education. I have a huge love for my family, my boyfriend, and my sweet Golden Retriever, Luna! In my free time, I am either shopping way too much, at a car show with my boyfriend, or getting puppachinos with Luna!

I am currently a teacher assistant at a private school. During my first few months, I worked with the kindergarten through second grade group. In those months, I learned how to be compassionate towards the kiddos, but remain on a professional level. I now know that while the curriculum is important to follow, it is also essential to teach kids things that will hold value to them for the rest of their lives. Since I am now working with the fourth through seventh grade group, I have learned how valuable lesson planning is to ensure you use all your instructional time wisely and to ensure there are no holes in your lessons.

I am most definitely an extravert and an existentialist type of person. I love to radiate positivity to my peers around me and definitely to the kiddos I work with now. I think your attitude as the teacher affects how the school day will go because the students feed off your energy. I hope to teach my students that positivity is a powerful force in life. I also hope to teach them with a progressivism philosophy, meaning that they will learn how to be expert problem solvers. That is a key thing to take into the "big world" with you. The elementary level of education is crucial because it is one of the biggest building blocks in their life. I hope to be a gardener to my students - to help them flourish into the amazing people they will be one day.