My students have become my children. As a first year teacher, I never expected to have such a connection with a bunch of high school kids, but it has happened and it is the source of my daily joy. In my classroom, we do a lot of research projects. Being from rural south Mississippi, my kids are often unaware of life outside of our small town. By participating in research about other countries and other groups of people, I help to open my students’ minds and guide them to think differently. Seeing their eyes light up when they correctly speak a sentence in Spanish or remember a detail about a Spanish speaking country makes my job worth every stress.

My students don’t all have access to computers at their homes, so some of our research projects have to be done at school. We have two computer labs and a laptop cart, but it is usually booked out for months in advance and extremely difficult to get when needed. It’s even harder to get it booked for all classes in one day. Having our own class set of devices would make research projects 1000% times easier because kids always have access and I can be there to help them in their research endeavors. My goal is to open the minds of my students, and researching about different cultures and then Spanish language is how I plan to do that.