All about US!

Our school year is winding down and before we get into summer break, we wanted to give you a little bio! We will take some time to rejuvenate and reflect on the past year and then dive into regular scheduled programming soon!

Be a star thrower,

J & M

J-

I want to preface by saying if you do know me at all, you know that I am usually a joker. I wanted to use this platform to really tell you my story about me. My parents divorced when I was in the 2nd grade, the before and after was awful. They would argue and then one would leave that night and then when they did divorce, I was forced to be in the middle for the longest time (typical sob story). I was an angry child for a loooong time. It was rough and I got past it, but it wasn’t easy. I lived with my mother and that meant going to a different school district, Jackson. I went there until I graduated. While in high school I worked various jobs, Hardees, Dana Corp cleaning, and at the southeast Missourian with my father. The Missourian is our local newspaper where my dad taught me the meaning of working hard. If he caught me without something to do, he GAVE me something to do. At the time I was just mad at him for making me do these various jobs that included emptying old newspapers into a truck for recycling, cleaning the bathrooms, flying papers (catching the end product) on the printing press to working the Saturday night insert job for the Sunday paper. Looking back it was really a blessing for me. I got to see how hard he worked and he instilled that work ethic in me. Once I finished high school, I started attending our local college, Southeast Missouri State University or SEMO for short. I initially started there to be a nurse because of the money. Well, that was a dumb decision since I can’t stand the sight of blood for the most part and get light headed. So after one semester of nursing, I went into teaching. In retrospect, I had known that’s what I wanted to do all along, but being young, dumb, and poor all I saw was $$$ and was blinded by that fact. I go on to have amazing professors such as Dr. Ray and Annetta Crawford. They treated me like a son in fact and helped me with life lessons that I really needed at that time in my life. I was also lucky enough to have an amazing cooperating teacher for my student teaching. Linda Verseman was this kind soul that taught kindergarten in a small town called Altenburg. The way she presented herself to me and the kids was more than amazing. She spoke with a soft voice that was kind and loving at the same time. She was just so incredibly amazing with these kids I was kind of star struck! My next experience was not that amazing so I'm not going to mention that school or experience because I don't want to speak ill of others. The next thing that happened was I graduated from SEMO with the idea in mind I would have a job in no time at all! My perception of that was about 12,000 kinds of wrong. I had forgotten what my dad had taught me about hard work and assumed I would just be given a job. When I didn't get the first job I applied for, I began to sub in only one school district which I thought I wanted to work. I did that for about 2 years along with working at Wal-Mart. Working at Wal-Mart was a life lesson on its own. I applied again for a job and didn't even get an interview this time. Mind you this is 2 years after I have had my degree. A friend of mine introduced me to a director of one of the local preschools and needless to say I was then working full time in a pre-k room. I wasn't really sure what I had gotten myself into with this little adventure. Turns out I loved working with the younger kiddos, they were eager and hungry to learn. This is where I figured out what grade I wanted to teach, KINDERGARTEN! I worked in the preschool for four years, working not only in the pre-k room but with the school-aged kids during the summer months. My boss at the time had gotten a job working at the Career and Technology Center and I was getting to the point of not feeling creative in my job and was also working a 2nd part-time job. I wanted benefits and to only have to work one job! She told me to try and apply again and with the help of her supervisor, I finally got my foot in the door! I had really given up before this, I had zero motivation and Kara(my supervisor) had pushed me to apply again! It's people like this in your life that are needed to kick you in the ass and put you back on the bike to try again. So there I was an assistant in a pre-k class in an actual school building.  I worked with another amazing human, Kelly Reeves. She helped guide me with my consolidating my student loans, renewing my teaching certificate, making me a bomb ass ugly Christmas sweater(I have a picture) and helping me prepare for a very important interview I had that year. That same year being in the pre-k, I had an interview for the district I was in and got my DREAM job to teach kindergarten! When I got this job, I made a promise to myself, I would always do the best job I could do for my kids and myself. It was a long journey to get the job and that's one thing I promised myself I would do. Five years later and I am still teaching kindergarten with amazing people, am a co-host of a podcast Tough Teacher Talk, and now a co-writer of this blog Two S.T.A.R. Throwers with another amazing mortal, Mara Uhls! Here I am now just living this dream life I have always wanted.

P.S. Not sure how I forgot the part of Uhls and I also worked on our Masters program together and graduated with a 4.0. BOOM!

P.S.S. Did I also mention how many new amazing passionate educators/edu learners I have met just this year?! I have been able to connect with soooo many rockstar educators that just bring it, like The Rock (he’s a wrestler, look him up)

M-

I was NOT one of those girls who always wanted to be a teacher. I had always enjoyed working with kids and after a sophomore psychology class, I wanted to be a child psychologist. Then I read A Child Called It and I was OUT. I couldn’t handle that. Fast forward to junior year - I signed up for child development as an elective for my senior year. I figured I would have fun and it would be easy. Which it was! AND I LOVED IT! And the first day of senior year, I came home and I told my mom I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. So, I applied to a few different universities - I was pretty much sold on moving away from the university in the town I grew up in, even though it’s known for its education program. After looking at the numbers- home is where it was at. I majored in Early Childhood Education and 3 months after graduating, landed a job in the district I attended as a kid. My DREAM was always kindergarten, but I was thrilled when I got hired to teach first grade because it was a JOB! Now, I love first grade more than anything and I couldn’t IMAGINE being anywhere else!

After surviving my first year, I went back to school and got my master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction. I got a 4.0!!!!

Fast forward to now, and I am finishing up my fifth year at a school I love, with co-workers and kids I absolutely adore. Soooooo of course I am going to mix it up next year…..