The Life of a Teacher

For this blog I conducted an interview with my mentor so that you can all get to know the journey she went through to get where she is today, and to show how well she qualifies as a teacher and my mentor.

My mentor's name is Mrs. Sarah Fitch; she is a teacher for a 2nd/3rd grade combo class of 24 kids between the ages of 7&9 at Cottonwood Creek Charter School in Cottonwood. The Cottonwood Creek School has been running for 5 years on the old West Cottonwood site and Mrs. Fitch has been teaching for 4 of those 5 years. Mrs. Fitch started out teaching 6th grade back in her 20's, but when she started having kids she took 10 years off to raise them. During this time she did some substitute teaching to keep her credentials up to date then became a librarian in the Cottonwood Library. After a few years she went back to Chico State and got her library media credentials and a master in curriculum/instruction. She then ran the library for 7 years. And now she is teaching at the Cottonwood Charter, and at the school she started up her own library system, with new books.

Mrs. Fitch has a love and passion for reading, she quoted in our interview, "I'm a teacher and a credentialed librarian and so I love a good story and I know how important it is for kids to experience different kinds of literature so I am very thankful that Esther can come in and give lessons on the many different genres with a fun activity at the end."

Mrs. Fitch enjoys a good book, and loves to include reading in her classroom atmosphere. She has the kids taking part in a few different reading programs, one is Accelerated Reader, and this is an online program that quizzes the kids on the books they just read. These quizzes are meant to show just how much attention was spent on the book. The kids also have A.R goals they must meet by the end of each learning period. The next reading group which is most commonly used in her classroom is the Treasure program which includes tons of stories and spelling/reading programs. The final program is called standards plus, this teaches kids how to break down a story using its plot, setting, character traits, etc.

Mrs. Fitch strongly believes that children should learn the art of reading at a young age, she quoted in the interview, "Part of developing good readers is giving them a love for a good story, and so being read to with a great drama and animation is just another way to promote literacy and love of reading."

I am extremely excited to work on this project alongside such a wise woman with as big a love and understanding for reading as I do. She understands the importance of looking at all genres instead of sticking to just one; she believes that there is a different adventure to be lived with each new genre. I can't wait to further this project with the kids and her and to watch as the young minds of those kids are blown as they discover there is more adventure wrapped in a paper than there is reeled on a screen, because as they will soon learn, is that with a book no one can tell you who to be, because with a good book and a big imagination you can be anything.