I’ve been going to Creeds ever since kindergarten and it has been a very big journey. The things I love about school are: I love to go to music and I love to go to art. My dad comes to have lunch with me every Monday. He used to come on Fridays to eat lunch with me and now he comes Monday. I just love eating lunch with him. And I get to play on a wonderful basketball team – the North Carolina Creeds. I’ve been playing basketball ever since I was 4 years old.

What would you like to do when you’re older?

It’s between the NBA and the Army. Mostly I want to go to the NBA because I’ve playing basketball for quite a long time. Second of all, I want to play on the Cleveland Cavaliers because they’re my favorite team and LeBron is going to play on it. Then Kyrie Irving and J.R. Smith. They’re the best players on the team and I would love to play on a team with legends.

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When I grow up I want to be a game developer because I like playing video games and I liked trying to make video games when I was 6 years old. I tried my best and I was really focused on what I was trying to do.

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When I’m not in school, I kind of like looking over my homework to see if I did anything wrong. Then eventually I go over and over and work on the things that I’m not doing well on in school and see if I can understand them. So once I come back to school, I’ll be able to know this, that and everything.

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I have a two-year-old. My focus at home is him and then I’ve been trying to work on myself this year – making sure I take time for myself and get into exercise and working out a little bit more. I feel like when I take that time for myself, it makes me better here at school and at home.

And my kids here are great. I really like fifth grade. I taught kindergarten and first grade for about ten years. When Dr. Reese asked me to come over here, she said all she had was fifth grade. I thought: What? Fifth-grade! But I love it. I do. Some of the things are exactly the same – social aspects like friendship issues and kindness things. At the same time, fifth-graders’ level of independence and humor, they’re on a whole other level as far as conversation goes. They get so excited – not that first-graders don’t get excited about things – but it’s different. We’re doing all this work with the American Revolution and they love it. They’re so passionate about what they’ve learned about the Declaration of Independence and Patrick Henry, and I think it ties in so well with what’s happening today. They are seeing our government in action with a new president. It’s a learning experience for me, too, because coming from first-grade to fifth-grade was all new. [With first-graders,] we were talking about how George Washington was the first president. In fifth grade, we’re talking about how the Constitution written in the 1700s applies today. I try to tie it all back to the history as much as I can.

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I’ve been crocheting for about 20, almost 30 years. My grandmother taught me when I was a teenager. I get relaxation, enjoyment and the joy on people’s faces when I make them something.

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Over the past four years, I’ve experienced a lot in high school – from different classes, my peers, some of the clubs and opportunities. In particular, one that I absolutely adore is Scholastic Bowl. I’ve been involved with it since my freshman year, and for the first time in FC history we’re going to the state tournament! I’m really looking forward to it mainly because it’s an entirely new experience. In my four years the team has gotten progressively better and better and better, and it’s amazing because I get to see how it all plays out. Hard work actually pays off.

Being exposed to all that information and the activities has opened me up to a lot of different interests, and I’ve managed to narrow those down just a bit more. There’s Scholastic Bowl and combine that with – I’m a part of the Foreign Policy Working Group at my school, so we’ve had a chance to go up to D.C. and talk to really amazing people who are changing the world day by day. That’s molded my interest in going into foreign policy. On the flipside of that, and I know they don’t generally have much to do with one another, but I’m also passionate about engineering. It’s just the application of things I learn in physics, things I learn in science and mathematics all coming to fruition. All of that kind of builds who I am. I’m hoping to find that one link between the two that gives me an opportunity to connect them and that way I don’t have to give up either interest. I love learning in general – just exposure to information and being able to share that information with others because there’s no real use in learning something if you can’t pass it on. I don’t really believe in being selfish with knowledge or information.

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I enjoy reading. That’s one of my main hobbies. I see reading as another way of telling a story – kind of like the way a movie does, but it’s better. In a book you create the scene in your head. You’re not seeing someone else’s vision; you’re seeing your own vision.

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My professional passion is really to help kids find the joy in learning. I did not enjoy school when I was kid – that was one of the reasons I went into education and became a teacher. I had a professor in college and I thought, if I had had teachers like that growing up, imagine how much I would have enjoyed it. I just think school’s gotten so much harder and so much more rigorous. It should be to prepare our kids for tomorrow, but I think one of my main goals is really to get kids talking at the bus stop – “Oh, I can’t wait to get to school! Guess what I’m doing today! Guess what we did yesterday!” – and having them be so excited about being here and learning and seeing what happens next and wanting to grow and learn.

My personal passion is animals, specifically dogs. I’ve always been a dog lover. One of my passions about dogs, which I try to instill in the kids, is giving back to the community. We’ve done projects involving service dogs, whether its police dogs or military dogs. We’ve raised money for protective vests for them. I was able to reach out to this one organization called Spike’s K-9 Fund and the folks there are just fabulous. They’ll come out to the school and they bring some of their dogs. I’ve learned so much through them and sharing with the kids what they do. They’re four-legged furry heroes – just like our servicemen and women are heroes. Living in this community, I think it’s awesome to be able to give back in some way, so we’re able to couple my passion for dogs and giving back to a military community as well.

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Wearing hats helped me get used to the school. I wasn’t a kindergartner when I came here. I came in first grade, so pretty much everybody already had friends because everybody had been in kindergarten together. I made friends by jumping in and wearing a new hat that nobody wears. It ended up that I got a lot of friends. Then eventually other people started wearing them.

I’ve always wanted to be an engineer, mostly an army engineer. Like the Hoover Dam, it was made by army engineers, not just a regular car engineer or even a business engineer. And Army engineers sometimes go on missions to other countries and build buildings and storage rooms for countries that don’t have the money to do it. I’ve always liked looking at things and understanding how they work. I’ve worked on a car with my dad before. I’ve helped my cousin change his oil filter. I also love cooking – with my dad especially. We have three dishes that we love. We love to cook salmon and we make our own marinade for that. We do awesome pork ribs, which we smoke those. We also love to smoke a giant brisket.

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I am most passionate about our children, that’s why I love what I do. I see kids grow up from kindergarten to fifth-grade and, in that process, I also meet generations of families. I know some five generations deep and I really enjoy that.

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When I’m not in school I usually like to go ice skating. I used to do figure skating and then I didn’t really like it because it started getting boring, so I started to do ice hockey. I’m in my second year of hockey. It was pretty hard for me to switch from figure skating to hockey because the skates are different. I kept falling forward and backward, but now I’m better. I like the excitement of it – skating down the ice, trying to score and get as many goals as possible and also, the main part of ice hockey, working as a team.

Why is it important to work as a team?

A lot of reasons. I can name a few right now. Like, cooperation – if we pass more, then we have more chances to shoot the puck and score. Sometimes we have games where some people get angry at each other, especially at the other team, and sometimes we get penalties. That’s how our team falls apart and loses games because we weren’t working together.

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When I’m not in school I Iike to do my homework, then I play a game on the computer and then I wait for my brother and sister. When I grow up I want to be a basketball player; I’m pretty good.

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I was a student here at Brookwood when I was younger and then I went to Plaza Middle and Ocean Lakes High School. I went to James Madison University and then came back home to student teach. The summer between graduating with my master’s and then trying to get a job I went on six interviews. The last interview was at Brookwood Elementary. I remember being at my nana’s pool with my mom, my nana and my best friend, and we were just kind of hanging out. I got the phone call from HR saying I got the job at Brookwood. I was so excited and jumping up and down. My nana said that it was meant to be because I went to this school and God really wanted me to come back to this school.

When I started setting up my classroom I realized there are people here that I grew up with. Kerry Knighton used to be one of our office staff when I was here and she came down to my room. She said, “Oh my gosh! I recognized your name! I’ve known you since kindergarten!” Adele Perry is still a secretary here. Mrs. Crowe teaches first grade here and she was my first-grade teacher. Mrs. Kerr teaches kindergarten now but she was my third-grade teacher. Brookwood is a place everybody wants to stay. It’s such a welcoming and loving place. It’s fun to listen to kids. I ask them who they had in first grade and they say, “Mrs. Kerr.” And I say, “Me, too!” They’re shocked and say, “You’re old! How were you ever once a kindergartener here?”

The kids make me laugh on a daily basis. They’re so funny! They’re definitely the best part of teaching.

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I wanted to solve world problems and world hunger. There are many different problems. I’m in Girl Scouts and we have packed 50 bags of food and put those in backpacks after school. The reason we put those in backpacks is so no one makes fun of them because some people can be judged by the way they look. They don’t get to eat as often and they don’t get any meals, and they can be judged by different people.

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I dressed up because you were coming to take pictures of our teacher because she’s our Teacher of the Year.

How do you feel when you dress up?

I feel cool when I dress up. I feel handsome.

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I’ve been doing ballet pretty much my whole life. I am at Twinkle Toes Performing Arts Company. I really like it because my dance teacher is ridiculously silly. The whole studio, we’re like one big giant family because it’s a really small studio. It’s really fun.

Do you want to continue with ballet when you’re older?

I want to be president when I grow up. I want to be in charge of the country. I feel like so much is happening and we could do so much to help, like politically and socially, because there is a lot of bad things. There’s a lot of stealing and robbing going on, and we also have people who are destroying our forests, which we need for trees and food.

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When I’m not at school I enjoy bowling. I’m in a league and I go to certain tournaments. I’ve been bowling for three years. I enjoy it when I get strikes and that satisfaction. But then if I get a lot of strikes, the pressure builds up to keep getting strikes. I also want to get better than my brother. He’s the one who taught me how to bowl. When he was 11, he wasn’t as good as I am at 11. So when I get older, he thinks I might be better than him. Both my brothers bowl. We bowl every Saturday unless there is a holiday or snow. 211 is my highest score. I think I got six strikes that time. At first I was doing bad, and then I got a lot of strikes at the end.

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I am most passionate about my job, family, friends and sports. I love sports, especially basketball. I follow Duke; I’m a Duke Blue Devils fan. Just years ago I started watching basketball and I chose Duke, and I’ve just been a Duke Blue Devils fan ever since.

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I truly believe I have the best job in the school system. I don’t have to do grades or discipline or plan; I get to go in and help teachers with whatever they need to do. I try to make the teachers’ jobs as easy as I can. I don’t mind doing anything they ask. I do everything from A to Z. I even put time in the cafeteria when we were short last year. If I’m helping, I’m happy. If I can make anybody’s day easier, I want to do that. Teachers have so much to do. Me running their copies or putting their games and things together, I don’t mind. My job is truly the best ever, and we have such a great school. We’re family. We are family – from admin to kindergarten, all the teachers, every staff member. I think once you’re here, even if you do move on, you’re still part of us. This is my seventh year here and hopefully I’ll have many, many more. This is the best job ever.

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We’re dressing up for career day. This career day is for telling people who you want to be when you grow up.

So, what are you dressed up as?

Well, I really didn’t dress up. I just look regular because that’s what teachers do and I want to be a teacher when I grow up. I look up to my teacher and I’m always good to her, so I always think about being a teacher when I grow up.

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I dressed up for the career fair. I just like dressing up.

Dress for success.

Yes, dress for success.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

The president.

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I owned Pizza Delight in Pembroke Mall for 18 years, then I started doing this. It’s been four years now and I love it. I love being around the kids all day. I even drive for summer school. I feel like I’m driving our future.

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When I’m not in school, I like to do gymnastics. It’s fun and it challenges you. I like the bars. I don’t know, I get higher points on the bars than some of the other exercises. We practice three times a week and then we have meets on some weekends. I have lots of trophies and medals, we get around five for each competition.

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I’m a very happy person! Art and singing and my friends around me and my family make me happy. My favorite class in school is art. I’m drawing a person right now. She’s happy but she’s also surprised because she got a big bear. I got a big, big bear for Christmas and I’m drawing the girl that’s surprised. Our teacher said she would teach me how to make a nose because I don’t know how to do that. She teaches us about shading and the family colors as in dark to light. Art makes me feel happy because I can sometimes express my feelings in the art.

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I wore an Eagles jersey because that’s my second favorite team. My favorite team is the Giants. My family likes the Giants.

Who’s going to win the Super Bowl?

The Falcons! Their offense is unstoppable.

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I wore this jersey because I like the 49ers a lot. It’s kind of something in my family because we’re all from California. I also wore it because this is the only jersey I had, for one, and because I couldn’t find my Longhorns T-shirt. This one is my first jersey so I really like it.

I wore a Dallas jersey because my mom was born in Texas, and my mom’s side and my dad’s side are both Cowboys fans – except for my grandpa; he’s a Redskins fan. When we watch the Cowboys-Redskins games, he always goes against my grandma. I’m a Dallas fan. A die-hard, live-for Dallas fan. I support my team when they go through hard times and rough times and the good times.

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I am so passionate about the students. Just seeing the students achieve: how they plan and how they go beyond their plan and are successful and accomplish what they want with hard work. The biggest challenge with sixth graders is getting them to see that they can accomplish things if they have a plan and a purpose for doing what they’re doing.

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The coolest part of third grade is probably the teachers because they are fun. They have fun activities and they’re nice to us. I have learned how to do real multiplication. That’s important because we may need multiplication some time in life, I guess.

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My advice to someone starting first grade is to have a great time and don’t let anyone bully them, no matter what. They should stand up for themselves and not get themselves in trouble and help other people who are getting bullied.

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I have a baby sister. She’s one, and I like to play with her. We play Mega Bloks. I like being a big sister because I get to take care of her.

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I actually started as a recreation worker in the after-school program and I saw how the P.E. teachers and I were doing similar things. So, I just wanted to learn another aspect of my job and get better because I like working with children. I’ve been doing this for 11 years. Recently, I’ve been persuaded to do a career switcher program, and I will pursue my P.E. degree.

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