Why Teaching?

Currently, I am pursuing a master’s degree in elementary education at the University of Tennessee. For my undergraduate degree, I chose to major in Linguistics - an area of study that focuses heavily on the development of language, its change over time, and its impact on societies and culture. In connecting culture and language, ESL (English as a second language) was also a large factor in this field. Although I had chosen Linguistics out of the desire to learn more about the workings of language and my own society, by the time I had completed my study, I had also learned how to teach English to non-native English speakers. Upon graduating, I decided to pursue a temporary teaching position abroad - during which time I discovered a personal connection to and passion for teaching young learners. After two years, I decided to return to the states and further my formal education to become a licensed educator.

My first experience with teaching children began in high school. As a leadership student, I traveled once a week with my class to a local elementary school that had many students from low-income households. During this time, my peers and I would each be paired with a single second-grade student in order to provide them with one-on-one mentoring. Though I found this experience to be enlightening, it was not until I had traveled abroad that I realized teaching was my future.