My Gurus

Who reassures and stretches me as an early childhood educator?

Being a first generation college student in my family, growing up my parents always let me know that the possibilities for my future were endless but attainable. They always stressed the importance of education and making a life for yourself by absorbing all the knowledge the world has to give us.

Like most young kids I knew what I wanted to be from a very young age, but to your surprise it wasn’t a teacher. It was a nurse! I was a nurse for halloween, I went to career exploration camps that toured hospitals, I even bought medical book from yard sales. So why am I sitting here as an education major you may ask? Simple… during one of those career exploration camps we toured the trauma bay after a gunshot victim had just been treated (I mean blood every where…lots of blood). Lets just say I hit floor quicker than the time it took me to realize nursing wasn’t the career for me.

My parents though, all through my tween and teenage years (yikes) they said “Felicia, what about teaching? You love teaching swim lessons, and you’re so good with them. It makes you happy we can see it!”

While my parents aren’t teachers or even closely linked to any career in the education field, they are the ones who reassure me that I will be a great educator. They can give me outside perspectives I would have never received. They stretch my views and teaching styles as outsiders with the perspective of at one time parents of a young child. They constantly support me through the long nights spent typing away at assignments, and they believed in me when I simply taught swim lessons for the joy of seeing young kids master the doggy paddle.

What pedagogies are shaping my path?

Seeing many different teaching pedagogies through my professors and cooperative teachers, I have found what I believe will be the steadfast foundation to my teaching pedagogy.

That foundation is: Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Getting the Right Size: UDL

Using a shoe store analogy, this short video by OCALI provides an overview of Universal Design for Learning.

Understanding that all students are vastly diverse, learn differently, and express their knowledge differently is the the logic behind UDL. Allowing for ALL students to receive content and show their knowledge is the foundation to my pedagogy.

Who is teaching me about the “Why” and the “How” in the field of early childhood?

The why of teaching is to me the emotional aspect of teaching. The why is the reason teachers come back day after day and year after year despite low wages, scarce resources, and the constant presence of standardized testing.

The why is taught to me by the kiddos I meet in my placement classrooms, the kiddos I work with at my job as an assistant preschool teacher, and the young children in my family. The kids, the students, and our future leaders are the “why” in the field of early childhood education. They are the reason we do what we do and learn what we do. They deserve the best education we can possibly provide while feeling like they are the most cared for individuals to ever walk through those classroom doors.

The “how” is how do we provide them that best education possible? How do we make them feel cared for, important, and empowered? That all comes from the content we learn in our courses here at Millersville. That knowledge comes from our professors, who them personally have years of first hand experience. This “how” also comes from our co-ops who give us real world experiences.

Who speaks the truth to me & shares new insight?

Believe it or not (actually you probably do) I receive a lot of great insight, ideas, information, and resources from fellow teachers across America via YouTube and Instagram! It’s interesting to see different school systems and teaching styles throughout the United States. Seeing these teachers and their teaching styles, lesson plans, activities, classroom management, and classroom set up helps generate a lot of ideas and creativity!

Check out some of my favorite teacher Instagram and YouTube accounts below: