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"When I see students utilizing strategies and making that transfer and talking to each other and talking about the criteria and what they're doing and why they're doing it to me that that makes me feel successful, like seeing that transfer and seeing them internalize my instruction, I think is what makes me feel the most successful." -Kara Erickson, mentor teacher

"Different things. The other day when Austin from last year came in, and he read that whole second-grade passage that he's been reading his whole life, I cried. Even though that probably wasn't me being successful, I felt happy for him. I felt like I gave him the base and now that he’s in second grade, he’s doing great." -Aimee Stephens,2nd grade mentor teacher

"So I don't know that I have a one specific time, but I will tell you that every time I am excited to teach something, whatever it is, whether it's through a story or a piece of writing, when I hear them come up to me like the next day or like on a Friday and they're like, Oh, Mrs. Z, I checked out a book about spiders at the library. Just that, like whatever I did to infect them, to be excited about carrying on their learning...just the fact that they're thinking about what we're doing when they're not here and they're excited about it." - Paige Zittrauer, 2nd grade teacher

"So, I’d definitely say that a successful teacher is somebody that leaves a lasting impact, whether it’s the relationships or giving them a boost of confidence in a class that they may never have felt successful in and letting them know that they are doing the best that they can and they are doing well. Because I think a lot of kids nowadays have a lot of pressure... so I would definitely say that a successful teacher is somebody who leads with love and lets them have that sense of pride and joy in learning"  - Fallon Nixon, 2nd grade teacher

"Yeah. So, my outlook on everything is just trying to make the world a better place. And I think that teaching is my way of doing that! Teaching is my way of contributing to the world and educating the future, which is how I look at it. I mean, people become doctors to save people. They become lawyers to help people you know, I guess that's just how I look at it!"  -Samantha Geautreaux, 2nd grade teacher

"Early childhood education I think is a time for building foundations. It's a time for acclimating children to school. It's also a time to allow them to explore because as they go further up, it becomes more rigid because things become departmentalized. So, this is an opportunity to build in children the fact that they have some independence and that they can make some choices and I think it's a time to make them feel safe in school to want to be in school and then develop love for school and their teachers so that they can be successful further on when things get a little more difficult." - Bonnie Bourg, Retired teacher

"The true purpose of early childhood education is to realize these are small little people. Those small little people will become big people. It's just to form them with values that will make them to be good citizens. Social, emotional, physical, and academic development to make sure that you teach the whole child and not just one portion of the child, because it's all about teaching the child, the whole person. Not just worried about the academic parts of it." - Lori Poche-James, Former Pk-K Teacher  

"I just wish everybody understood that it's not just nine months. We don't get summers off. We don't get off at three o'clock in the afternoon. Like you, you work. You take your work home. You go home and you're never off. You're always at 100. You're never off . Like, your kids are always on your mind and your mind is always going and you're always thinking about what could I have done differently. Like you, you become reflective as a teacher but when you do that you start thinking about your own practice. Well, what could I have done differently that day?" - Kara Erickson, 2nd grade mentor teacher

"I think a lot of people have the perception that like, “oh, kindergarten? That’s easy. They’re learning ABCs, one, two, threes.” I’m like, you have to almost be like an actor throughout the whole day and just like, cause with their attention span, it’s like... You have to make things fast paced, like, get them moving. They can’t be sitting down for too long or they won’t, they’ll just space out. So, um... Yeah, I think the perception is sometimes like, “oh, teaching kindergarten is like very easy.” But, um, it’s pretty hard and I feel like I have a lot of pressure as well because kindergarten’s like a really huge developmental like state. Like they’re learning, every like the fundamentals like here. So, I feel like sometimes I have a lot of pressure to get them where they need to be at the end to, you know, flourish. But kids are resilient too though."- Ashley Barragan, Kindergarten teacher

"There is a lot, a lot of stuff that goes into it that people do not understand. That I myself did not understand even in my student teaching portion of it, that I did not understand until I was the main teacher of 22 small children that I am responsible for. That there's just so much that goes on behind the scenes that people don't see. So, it's easy to say, "oh, your job is seven to three. That's not bad." Your job is way past three o'clock. Your job is not Monday through Friday. It is, it can be Sunday through Friday because some things you have to do so much prep for and then if you have children and a family, you have so much time management that you have to do to make sure that everyone gets their needs met. Your needs, your family's needs, your kids' needs, uh, your students' needs. Everyone you're trying to almost please, in order for them to succeed. There is a lot of pressure on teachers, and I am hoping that at some point in this career, that will get taken off or something will change." -Makenzie Eddy,2nd grade teacher

"You know this past summer. There is always PD granted with 2020 being 2020, we didn't have any conferences. There were no trainings. We could go to away and the past we've been blessed to go off to either the Kennedy Center in DC or Teachers College in New York to learn about the curriculum we are using. In this past summer, everybody was hands on trying to prepare for what the school year is going to look like. We adopted a new curriculum. So we were sitting through zoom meetings, learning about our new curriculum. And teachers who are going to be set up to be virtual teachers were sitting through PD to learn how that was going to work. But even in a non COVID year there's always something going on curriculum wise. In the past we ran summer camps. So it would work in two weeks of summer camps summer school. We're always doing something. It's never a summer off." - Brandie McNabb, 2nd grade teacher

"Yeah. So I have a side job working for Teachers Pay Teachers. I make PowerPoints for the curriculum that we use, so I do a lot of those during the summer. But as far as just prepping for my classroom and stuff, I like to get organized. I'm a freak about my master copies, so over the summer, I organize all those by subject and topic for the whole year so that way, it's ready to go and all I have to do is pull it. And of course, I change things up every year a little bit, but those are all already there. Also, because I work at a school where pretty much the entire student population is economically disadvantaged, a lot of kids come without school supplies. So, one thing I do is I recycle anything that wasn't used the previous year or if a student droppedI would use those materials. I go ahead and label notebooks, put rubrics in notebooks, label folders, stock up on crayons, etc. Sometimes if you work at a school where kids aren't so much economically disadvantaged, they might want to bring their own supplies; they want their cool notebooks and things like that, so if a kid does bring their own stuff and they want to use it, that's fine and I'll put the labels on that. But this way, I have enough prepared. That way, it makes the first week of school go by a lot easier. I make sure to clean all my buckets, add new labels, that kind of thing." -Samantha Geautreaux, early childhood educator

"I do a lot of workshops. I do a few during the school year. Well depends on when they are, after school workshops. You know during school years, just really, I don't get much out of them. But during the summer, I usually go to several and they usually cover the different topics. Like you know when we get the new reading series. I make sure I go and learn what I can before school starts that way, I have a clue as to what to do when school starts." - Jodi Barson, 1st grade teacher

"Well, my first two years I did um summer school. So, I worked—  Summer school and I—I did kindergarten as well. Um. The kids who needed extra help before they went to first grade or the kids they had to be sent to that um, the summer school in order to go to first grade just you know they’re like, “okay you know your child’s at risk but you know they need to come to summer school in order to be pushed on to first grade.” Because then in Louisiana you can’t, um, repeat kindergarten. Um, and, but this summer—this past summer with COVID that was just a hard year, so I was like, “I’m not doing anything!” - Ashley Barragan, Kindergarten teacher

"I would tell them that it's a very rewarding field. It's a career that does not get enough accolades that it should. But it's a field that's very rewarding and don't look at the price tag of the salary in which that you are going to make. It's a career that totally makes a difference. So, without good teachers we wouldn't have doctors, lawyers, politicians, and it's through our efforts that we ķfeel called to the education field. I definitely feel I answered that call because it's a job that truly makes a difference."  -Lori Poche-James, former Pk-4 teacher

"If you have any stereotypes about any type of person, be it race, sexuality, color, or anything let those stereotypes go. A person is a person. Don't ever judge a book based off of what you can see. Really get to know your families that you work with and your kids that you work with because you may very well be surprised. It only takes one to really touch your heart and really grasp at you. But always be open and willing to work with families, no matter what they may be going through, because they may just need that person just to talk to. That child may just need that person to talk to. You should always be willing to be a person that is open and willing to talk to them—both parents and students."  -Shelby Cavalier, headstart teacher

"Just to give yourself grace, I mean, we preach about giving our kids grace continuously. And we need to do so for ourselves, you know, the work is always going to be there. So, you know, take some time for yourself some self care, because our job is already incredibly stressful. So to throw on all of the things in the world right now, like, you got to take care of yourself so that you can take care of your school babies, right?"  -Kayleigh Cashio, special education teacher

"A typical day. Um, well, what I love about that question is that there really is no typical day because you never know what the day is going to bring. Um, and that's what I love about the job, because there's so much variety. I never get bored. The kids keep you on your toes. Some days they will make you laugh. Other days they'll make you cry." - Ms. Emily Smith, Pre-K teacher