Meet the Teacher

Hello! My name is Anajé Silva - students call me Ms. Silva :) and this is my fourth year teaching 4th grade at Middleton! A fun fact about me is that I attended Middleton as a child! It is a joy to again be apart of the loving and supporting community here at Middleton.

I graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor's in Elementary Education and an endorsement in English as a Second Language. I have always been inspired by cultural and linguistic exchange and in college I focused my studies on fostering a diverse community of learners. As a student teacher, I taught at a Spanish-English dual language school in Champaign before moving back to Skokie to finish my student teacher education at Edison Elementary School.

I love to sing, read, listen to podcasts, pet my dogs, play soccer, and much more! I am Brazilian-American and grew up here in Skokie. I started off studying film production (cinematography) at Columbia College Chicago for the first two years of my college career. I love all things fine arts; film, theatre, music, dance, and visual art. After Columbia, I transferred to Oakton Community College where I worked in a school with a large population of emergent bilingual students. I decided to then pursue a degree in Elementary Education with an ESL endorsement at the University of Illinois. My time at UIUC was wonderful; I joined an a cappella group on campus, I started working as an arts program advisor in Allen Hall, and I worked hard to achieve a 4.0 gpa and the Bronze Tablet Scholar honor. My classroom philosophy is that of multicultural education and inclusion. I believe in getting to know each student, their background, and their needs in order to provide the appropriate learning avenues for all students.

Please reach out anytime. I am always available to support your family!

- Ms. Silva