| Grant Winner Tiffany Jessen Loves Choice! |
| posted by: Cindy Omlin | February 29, 2016, 11:10 PM |
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Ms. Jessen notes that her desire to become a teacher was strengthened when her son was in high school, a place where he was surrounded by broken, hurting children. “I looked at some of his classmates, the ones with poor support or no support, and my heart ached for them. Who would fight for these kids? I was already in school to be a teacher but my desire to teach at a charter changed to wanting to work at a high poverty school with students who didn't come to school with everything that they needed to be successful.” Like all educators, Ms. Jessen finds the position of a teacher challenging even under the best of conditions. “My biggest challenge has been how hard classroom management is and just getting everything done while trying to manage life. I am stunned at the number of hours that I have to work to make everything work together.” Although it is sometimes a crazy job, Ms. Jessen’s greatest satisfaction has been watching her students grow. She especially loves doing fluency reads and seeing how far her students advance in such a short time. Involving the community is something Ms. Jessen does to advance the professionalism of education. “By developing relationships with families through math nights, art nights and literacy nights you invite families in to see what students are doing.” She gives families tasks and shows them why she is teaching students the way she is. It often expands parents understanding of the education their students are getting. “It is amazing how seeing and experiencing something can change your outlook on the why we do certain things.”
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Ms. Jessen will use the $250 award presented to her by Brenda Miller, NWPE regional director, to purchase equipment and materials to set up a listening station and word work station where students can use different manipulatives to help develop their spelling skills as well as anchor charts and additional markers to post around the room to help her students remember what they have learned.