Cohort: 2023
Credentials: Multiple Subject w/ Master of Arts in Teaching Reading
Degrees: BA in English; Master of Arts in Teaching Reading
Currently Teaching: Yick Wo Alternative Elementary School, Kindergarten
Current Position
Question: How did you come to Yick Wo Alternative Elementary School?
Paige: I moved to North beach in March of my fifth year. I only applied to or contacted or communicated with schools in this neighborhood, like North beach, Chinatown, and Russian Hill. Yick Wo got back to me first as they knew they were going to have a kindergarten position open I didn’t really hear from some schools or they said they didn’t know yet. I think I interviewed in maybe late April or May. They offered me the job first here at Yick Wo. The other school that I was going to interview at is a much larger school, Sherman Elementary School. In choosing, I thought in my first few years of teaching, would it be nicer to be at a smaller school or a much larger school? There was also a start time difference there. Sherman was early start, and we’re a late start school, so that was something I considered as well.
The application process was primarily just going around physically and delivering my resume by hand, speaking to principals if I could when I was there, and then following up pretty frequently to say, hey, just a reminder, you have my resume. I was very persistent because I knew I didn’t want to commute too far. I really wanted to live and work in the same, same neighborhood. The process I followed was advice that I had received from a UTEC alum. I went to the alum panel my senior year. I can’t remember the name of the teacher that said this, but that was her recommendation. Other teachers, like my mentor teacher at the time when I was student teaching said that’s a really great idea. So that was a recommendation that in order for them to know who you are, you kind of have to bypass some of the district stuff. You still need to apply and do the sort of official things, but it really makes an impression to say, hey, here I am. I also had a cover letter with it as well, that spoke more to why I was interested in kindergarten, the kinds of projects that I had done, and about my Master’s as well, because I did my Master’s in teaching reading.
A Typical Day
Question: What what do your days look like as a kindergarten teacher?
Paige: I would say at this school specifically, there’s no typical day because we’re an alternative school. What that means is we just have additional specials that some other schools might not have. So, for instance, my students today have dance and library and then P.E. So a lot of their day is spent outside of the classroom, which is great for them. A typical day for me is I come in kind of early, we start at 9:30. So I’m usually up in here and getting ready. I might chat with a couple of teachers, but for the most part I’m in my room. We always start the day with morning circle. We do calendar. We do a morning story, phonics, foundational skills. Always in the morning. My kids have a snack recess. I also switch to doing math in the morning too. That was a change I made from last year, so I’ve been enjoying that. And then in the afternoon we do a longer reading and writing block. My kids might have another special like garden or library. Then we end the day usually with either choice time or another sort of lesson. I have the social worker coming every week, and she does a Chinese lesson. That’s really awesome. And we also always end the day with a gratitude circle and an afternoon circle.
I kind of model a lot of my daily schedule off of my mentor teacher schedule. But I was also a teacher’s assistant at a preschool for a year and a half when I was in undergrad. So a lot of those routines come from more of a preschool background. I really like starting the day with with the circle. We go over the schedule, we sing songs, we do that kind of thing that comes from the preschool. And then the same in the afternoon ending in a circle. I really like that sort of routine. I do make notes of how I want to change things for next year. But those were some changes that I made from last year. I used to start the day with sort of a slow start, like the kids would come in and do a fine motor skills thing or something like that. But this year I said, I kind of want all of us to start together and then we go from there into something else. So that was a change I made from from last year.
Pursuing the MATR
Question: What made you pursue your Masters in Teaching Reading?
Paige: It was kind of lucky in some ways. I had taken the two prerequisite classes when I was an undergrad, so that didn’t add any additional time to my fifth year, which was a big thing. I don’t know if I would have made that same choice otherwise. I really enjoyed Early Literacy with Helen Maniates. I wanted to learn more. It felt like an area of need in my sort of teaching. I wanted to learn more about the conversation about literacy, because around this time was when the science of reading thing really started taking off. I’d only been trained in balanced literacy. I don’t really know a lot about other types. I loved taking classes with Helen, and she’s the program lead for the reading program. She ended up being my advisor as well for my fifth year. I knew it was a big need in my teaching practice to really hone those skills. I also did a teaching fellowship the same year as my fifth year at a program called Words in the Wild. They use structured word inquiry, which is similar to the science of reading. I was already kind of involved in that fellowship, so I was like, I just want to be able to bring more to that as well.
Experience as a Fieldwork Mentor
Question: You’re currently serving as a UTEC fieldwork mentor. What do you hope to nurture in your mentee?
Paige: I think confidence. I would say that’s a real strength of doing the undergrad program. When you start that fifth year, you feel like you’re really ready to teach because you’ve been building up your confidence in the classroom. Such as the confidence in knowing that every lesson you teach isn’t going to be great. I really want to build that confidence, because I know that that was something my mentor teachers did when I was in fieldwork. They totally trusted in me and gave me the the space to be in their classroom and be seen as a teacher in the same way that they were. That was really important to me. Even though at the time I felt so young, there was this belief and trust. Confidence. This is a really important job and it’s a hard job, but it takes practice doing it. I learned so much in those fieldwork experiences in addition to my teaching fellowship and working at a preschool. A lot of that was because the teachers around me believed in me and said, you can do this and here’s your chance to practice that.
Question: What did you learn in your first fieldwork?
Paige: It was a lot about how to design a classroom, like what the classroom setup looks like. What routines are important, particularly transition routines and how you set up the daily schedule. Seeing that in action was really important because you can’t really learn about that in your [graduate teaching] classes. So seeing it in action was really great. My mentor teacher at the time was especially skilled in that area. His routines were spot on. The sort of higher level things that I think you don’t think about until you have your own classroom. Where do you want your turn-in box to be? Where do you want the kids to be, where do you want your library to be? Those kinds of things. I spent a lot of time doing that observational stuff: what does the classroom look like, feel like? And how does this teacher set it up to be successful? How does a classroom work? That was the big question.
UTEC Highlights
Question: Reflecting back on your time in UTEC, what are some of the highlights?
Paige: I think the highlights were learning from not only teachers that were teaching, like my mentor teachers, but also from those in my cohort. These are still people that I speak to to this day. We have a group chat. We’re all teaching across grade levels in the district. So I think a highlight was building those relationships, because those are relationships that I still rely on to this day. Fieldwork was a highlight. My first full-time teaching job didn’t really feel like a first year in some some ways because I had had experience and that was really helpful. That was something that even veteran teachers and families commented on, like wow, we can’t believe that this is your first year. You are so confident. Part of that is, you know, you got to fake it till you make it. But I think the highlight was getting surrounded by people who believed in you as a teacher, who wanted you to be a great teacher, who knew you were already a great teacher. The mentors and the friends as well, that you could rely on and say, hey, I’m having this challenge. Can you help me with this? Those are still relationships that I share to this day. As you know, my school was on the closure list this year and so was another friend of mine from that same cohort. That relationship was really important at that time to say, you’re going through this too. It was really important to feel supported in that.
Advice to Current Students
Question: Since it’s a challenging program to juggle everything, do you have any advice for students who are in the program?
Paige: I don’t know if I did a good job at that. I feel like it would be more, what would I do differently? Although I will say, having to balance so much [in the program] has made what I do now a lot easier. Now I walk to work, I work, and then I go home, as opposed to when I was in UTEC. Then, I worked most days at the preschool pretty much 8 to 4. If I had class, then I’d go to USF and do class and I wouldn’t be home until eight or whatever. So I don’t know if I would do it that way again. I would say, remember small things like eating breakfast, eating lunch, balancing social things and asking for help. The professors in UTEC and in the School of Ed are very, very empathetic and understanding. Obviously, a lot of that comes from being either teachers or former teachers. They understand that perspective. They consider what are your basic needs and how can I help support you in that?
Reaching out and asking for support is something I probably should have done more of because when I did, it was really helpful. But I think in some ways it is going to be be challenging. I don’t know if there’s anything that would help take away some of those challenges, because I also learned so much from that as well. Though I’m wondering if I could have honed that skill a little bit more when I was in undergrad, say hey, I’ve done enough for today. I need to close my laptop, take a break, go see friends. So I think I could have done a better job at that.
