It’s spring, 1996. My mother has my newly born brother on a changing table and, as I watch them, the realization that I can never be a medical doctor dawns on me. For most children, this is not a major crisis; for me, it means that I may have to settle for my back up career of princess. Flash forward to the fall of 1997. I am in a plaid dress and happily skipping off of a big yellow bus from my first day of school. My future is clear: I am going to be a teacher. If not that, a princess will have to do.

 

This certainty has given me an unique perspective as I have gone through my educational career. Every decision I have made has been to help me become a better teacher. In high school, I participated in an internship back where it all started, a kindergarten classroom in Clarence Center (with my favorite elementary school teacher to boot!). From there it was to Buffalo State College as a member of the Muriel A. Howard Honors Program and the Exceptional Education Program.

 

As a world traveller at heart, I participated in the student exchange program early in my college career. I spent a semester in Manchester, travelling throughout the United Kingdom in my free time. I even got to visit the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace! There I studied literature with a focus on creating works for children. While I thought my international student experiences were over, I was fortunate enough to hear about the pilot program of Buffalo State’s Germany for Educators two days before the application deadline. Right before my student teaching semester, I travelled to Stuttgart, Germany to look at how they train their teacher candidates and teach their young students. This experience was a fundamental influence on who I am as a teacher and how I want to run my classroom, and it is the inspiration for this project.

 

Currently, I am a graduate student at Buffalo State College in the Curriculum Planning and Instruction Program. In the summer I volunteer with middle school children for the Lancaster Public Library’s Battle of the Books program. Battle of the Books is a reading competition where students compete at memorizing trivia from five books and compete with other libraries throughout the county. Our team is a consistent top-ten member and even won first once!

 

As the Type-A Ravenclaw that I am, I have many plans for my future. In the fall I will be marrying my fiancée after knowing each other for eleven years; once I am settled in the classroom, I hope to pursue my Doctorate in Education as well as write a few children and young adult books; and of course, travel is in my future as well. I just have to figure out where to first.