Tina Nelson
Professor Yerks
Comp 106-019
10 March 2010
Profile of an Educator
The subject of my research is to explore the transitioning of elementary school to middle school students. I decided to interview Ms. Garland, because she is passionate about the educational well being of children and I felt that she would be a good person to give an overall perspective on the structures of education according to her own experience. My decision to interview Ms. Garland was not because she is my boss, but because I see how well she handles the various situations that occur on a daily basis within our school.
Ms. Garland is a native Detroit and a proud Detroit Public School graduate herself. We spoke about some of the things that she would like to see happen within our school district. Her original desire was not to be and educator at all. In fact her original goal was to become a registered nurse. “I had designs to be a registered nurse” (Garland). She started her college pathway towards nursing but then decided that education was really what she wanted to do. Ms. Garland has a wealth of experience in the field of education, starting out as a Special Education teacher and now a principal of an elementary school. Over the span of her 35 years as an educator, she has many memorable moments which have given her the opportunity to travel and learn through the various professional development environments across the country. She has seen many good days throughout her career as an educator as well as many challenging ones. The most challenging times have been within the last couple of years; but overall, her experience has been very fulfilling and most exciting. She is very passionate about the education of children and this passion is felt by all that come into contact with her every day.
As most of us know, the Detroit Public School district is making headline news just about every day. The media is constantly showing this school district as failing. When I asked what would be the most significant change that she would like to see in the district? Her response was “a quality education from the perspective of making each and every child in Detroit competitive on a global level” (Garland). One of the things that we both agree upon is that there should be a change in classroom sizes. Detroit schools classrooms can be as large as 35 to forty students and sometimes higher.
We moved forward in our discussion towards what my research topic is about. I asked her opinion on how she felt our own sixth grade students would handle moving forward into middle school and how does she think they adjust to being in middle school? Her response to this question was that our sixth graders will adjust fairly well and this is partly due to the exposures that they have received over the past few years. The experiences that we have exposed them to are more than those of sixth grade students and will help in their transition. We both have taken pride in what I like to call, “off the block” experiences. She believes that mentorship is the key to helping those children that may be struggling with the idea of leaving elementary school.
In deciding to look at this topic as a subject, I have began to wonder if students tend to not perform to their greatest potential because they are not ready to move forward and she said that this could very well be an issue, because elementary education is more nurturing and the fear of being in a larger environment and there has not been enough integration activities between elementary and middle school students.
Being an educator is a tough job and unfortunately, many of the programs of days gone by no longer exists which causes principals, staff and support staff members to be creative in their approach toward giving their students the best quality educational experience as possible. Ms. Garland not only hopes to see the Detroit Public School system return to the national prominence that it once had and she truly believes that it will be a championship school district again.
Work Cited
"Profile of an Educator." Personal interview. 8 Mar. 2010.
Burt Elementary School Sixth Grade Classroom. There are 34 sixth grade students in this one classroom.
Some sixth grade students enjoying one of the many "off the block" experiences.
Sixth grade fellas posing with one of the staff members during lunch.
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Your pictures are great action shots! They are clear and no two look the same. You get a good idea of the environment from them and they display the people and their surroundings beautifully. The only thing is the lack of a picture of your actual interviewee, I don't know what she looks like.