Although my original plan was to teach kindergarten, when I took my first job teaching 6th grade, my life was forever changed. At the time, what I thought was temporary, was the best opportunity I could have ever received. This past seven years, I have found my heart is at home when I step into a middle school classroom.

Reading has always been a large part of my life, and over the last 5 years, I have worked at integrating that passion into the classroom. No matter the lesson, I have learned the value of placing text at the center. I am always seeking professional development and learning the best ways to close the critical gaps in literacy.

One of my core strengths as a teacher is the ability to be flexible. My lessons never look the same period to period as I am always adapting best practices to fit the needs of every learner. Through the years, I have adopted a flexible approach to teaching, whether it be through flexible seating or flexible lessons, because every learner is different.

TEACHING Philosophy

It is my firm belief that teaching is something one must love to do in order to do it well. For me, teaching is a calling. Although that may seem like a clichéd statement, I know that teaching is something that truly runs in my blood. I tried to "ignore the calling," receiving a bachelors in marketing and working in retail marketing and design for five years before finally admitting that something was missing from my life. After returning to the University of Central Arkansas for a masters in teaching, I realized my home would always be in a classroom, whether learning or teaching.

From an early age, I have always loved the process of learning. You can ask any one of my students, it doesn't take much for me to "nerd out" on a tangent, and I often have to remind myself that, although sometimes necessary, lecturing is not what I was placed in the classroom to do. It is my hope that I can instill in my students the desire to be lifelong learners and seek out the information they need. One of the reasons I am drawn to middle school is their natural curiosity and their ability to find the information they seek given the right environment and means. Whether it be through a Socratic seminar, choice reading, a hands on project, or room transformation, I live to light the spark of my students' natural curiosity. I want my students to know that learning can, and should, happen outside the walls of their classrooms.