BonnerSprings.com

Growing up in a family of teachers would be enough to make a teacher out of anybody.

This is exactly why 23-year-old Kristi Mayer finds herself each day in a kindergarten classroom at Delaware Ridge Elementary — her first teaching job after college.

“I’ve always known,” said Mayer of what she would eventually become when she grew up. “I have a lot of family members who are teachers. I used to always play school when I was little, so I’ve just always known.”

Mayer earned her bachelor’s in education from Kansas University and is one class away from completing her master’s program. She will also be receiving an English as a Second Language certification, which she says is important in a classroom like hers where 11 out of 19 of her students are Spanish speaking. She says each day she has a Spanish word of the day for her students to learn, and she is always impressed when she sees her Spanish-speaking students helping her with her teaching duties. They are also her main translators when Mayer is communicating with parents.

“It’s phenomenal,” Mayer said. “I have 5-year-olds translating between me and parents. It’s awesome.”

Mayer said she wasn’t expecting to teach such young students, but after being offered the job at DRE she visited several different kindergarten classrooms in the area to observe and get an idea of how teaching kindergartners worked. It was during those visits, she says, that she fell in love.

“Just how the kids take in so much information and how they love learning,” Mayer said of why she loves teaching her kindergartners. “Just they’re so innocent and just so great.”

Mayer said her goals for the coming year will be to continue open communication with her students’ parents and to let her students know that she has high expectations of them. Most of all, she said she would like to bring in creative ways of teaching that will engage her students and that they can relate to.

After visiting the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago last week, Mayer created a PowerPoint presentation from pictures she had taken to show her students. With many of her students being “Finding Nemo” fans, she said that day’s lesson was special.

“They were very excited about that,” Mayer said of the pictures. “Because they can make a connection with it and anything they can relate to they’re going to remember it a lot more. They have a personal connection to it.”

Mayer says one of her favorite parts about teaching is that each student is unique, never making for a dull day.

“Probably how every kid is different,” Mayer said of what she likes most about teaching. “And I have so much diversity in my classroom that everyone has something special to offer.”

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