Tuesday, February 22, 2011
About Me
I grew up in a south suburb of Chicago in a community that was fairly diverse. I moved to Madison to complete my undergraduate coursework and studied in Sevilla, Spain during the spring of my junior year. I was blown away that my Spanish coursework had not prepared me for daily life with my Spanish family, but after a month, loved my time in Sevilla. I was lucky enough to travel for 2 months around western Europe during the summer with all of my summer job savings! I would have loved to have majored in Spanish, but knew that I had to finish in four years and had already begun my career path. Therefore, I graduated in 2000 with a double major, not in education or Spanish, but in social work and sociology!
I was accepted into Teach For America and spent the summer in what I call, boot camp, in Hoston, TX teaching K/1 summer school for six weeks and attending seminars and workshops all afternoon and evening. Eventually the summer ended and I moved to New Orleans to begin my life changing experience. I taught third grade in an inner city school with 99% of students in poverty and 100% of students identifying as African American. Needless to say, I learned a lot in my two years and with my night classes and evening seminars, I earned my elementary regular ed. teaching license from Louisiana from the New Teacher Project. I also spent the summer in between teaching up in Alaska running youth outdoor activities for native students; which was a great change from New Orleans!
After finishing my Teach For America committment, I moved back to Madison and took a position as a case manager for adults with developmental disabilities in the community for a year before going back full time as a graduate student in school social work. I worked throughout grad school doing overnights to support adults with disabilities and interning 30 hrs. per week at Middleton High School as a school social worker. Upon completion of my MSW, I was accepted into the JET Program and moved to a small industrial city in northern Japan. For my year in Japan, I taught English at four high schools throughout my area. I took classes to learn Japanese, traveled throughout Japan and also traveled to China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laotia and Cambodia. This again was an eye opening experience, as I had not had much experience with Asia or Asian people in the United States.
When I returned home, I worked as a school social worker at an elementary school and at a middle school in the Middleton Cross Plains Area School District. Unfortunately, I only had a temporary contract, so I decided to move back to the Chicago area to pursue a license in ESL. I taught second grade in a south suburb of Chicago where I had 8 different languages spoken in the homes of my students, none of which was Spanish! At night, I attended classes at National Louis University at the Illinois Resource Center and after two years completed my ESL and bilingual coursework.
But before I moved back to Madison to marry my husband and work as a bilingual resource teacher in an elementary school in Middleton, I spent the summer in Ecuador improving my Spanish. I spent six weeks living with two different families in Cuenca and attending intensive one-on-one classes four hours per day. When I returned to Madison, I worked as a bilingual resource teacher for a school with a brand new ESL program for one year before I decided that I wanted to be back in the classroom. So, the following year I transferred to a more diverse school to teach fourth grade with the ESL cluster in my classroom. Currently, I am back to teaching second grade in the same school with five ESL students in my classroom.
I was accepted into Teach For America and spent the summer in what I call, boot camp, in Hoston, TX teaching K/1 summer school for six weeks and attending seminars and workshops all afternoon and evening. Eventually the summer ended and I moved to New Orleans to begin my life changing experience. I taught third grade in an inner city school with 99% of students in poverty and 100% of students identifying as African American. Needless to say, I learned a lot in my two years and with my night classes and evening seminars, I earned my elementary regular ed. teaching license from Louisiana from the New Teacher Project. I also spent the summer in between teaching up in Alaska running youth outdoor activities for native students; which was a great change from New Orleans!
After finishing my Teach For America committment, I moved back to Madison and took a position as a case manager for adults with developmental disabilities in the community for a year before going back full time as a graduate student in school social work. I worked throughout grad school doing overnights to support adults with disabilities and interning 30 hrs. per week at Middleton High School as a school social worker. Upon completion of my MSW, I was accepted into the JET Program and moved to a small industrial city in northern Japan. For my year in Japan, I taught English at four high schools throughout my area. I took classes to learn Japanese, traveled throughout Japan and also traveled to China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laotia and Cambodia. This again was an eye opening experience, as I had not had much experience with Asia or Asian people in the United States.
When I returned home, I worked as a school social worker at an elementary school and at a middle school in the Middleton Cross Plains Area School District. Unfortunately, I only had a temporary contract, so I decided to move back to the Chicago area to pursue a license in ESL. I taught second grade in a south suburb of Chicago where I had 8 different languages spoken in the homes of my students, none of which was Spanish! At night, I attended classes at National Louis University at the Illinois Resource Center and after two years completed my ESL and bilingual coursework.
But before I moved back to Madison to marry my husband and work as a bilingual resource teacher in an elementary school in Middleton, I spent the summer in Ecuador improving my Spanish. I spent six weeks living with two different families in Cuenca and attending intensive one-on-one classes four hours per day. When I returned to Madison, I worked as a bilingual resource teacher for a school with a brand new ESL program for one year before I decided that I wanted to be back in the classroom. So, the following year I transferred to a more diverse school to teach fourth grade with the ESL cluster in my classroom. Currently, I am back to teaching second grade in the same school with five ESL students in my classroom.
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