Introduction

A Little Bit About Me

    Hi everyone! My name is Elli Meredith. I am a sophomore in college at Texas State University. I am from Cypress, Texas, a suburb outside of Houston! I have a lot of experience with kids, such as babysitting, nannying, and a program at my old high school called Ready, Set, Teach! I also love to do hair and makeup and I even work at a hair salon as the receptionist! A fun fact about me is I was a gymnast for 9 years and then a dancer for 5!

Why Teach?

    I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. When I was younger I used to always play teacher with stuffed animals. I would line them up and sit in front of them and read a book to them. Any sport I did or game I played I would always become the leader somehow and help anyone who was confused. I started babysitting and volunteering with kids at a young age and worked my way up to nannying. As I grew up I would continue to say I wanted to be a teacher when I was older so, naturally, I took that route in high school and enrolled in a class called Ready, Set, Teach. In this class we would create lesson plans and projects, where we travel over to the elementary school and be a teachers aide. It was an amazing experience to have that opportunity just as a sixteen year old. But unfortunately, the fun did not last. 

    The teacher I had for my Ready, Set, Teach class was not particularly nice to me and would get very mad at people in general. I became uninspired in teaching and began to give up and soon dropped the class due to how much we did not get along, student teaching wasn't fun for me anymore. My senior year of high school came around and I was not in the class anymore and had new teachers including a new dance instructor. My dance instructor and I became instantly close. Then covid hit. I didn't see my dance instructors for months and couldn't finish my senior year of high school which was not a good time for anyone. I enrolled in Texas State as a business major and started my freshman year. But, throughout the year I could not stop thinking about teaching! After talking to my mom and calling my dance instructor I started getting back on the path of teaching and here I am! I want to teach to encourage students to want to learn and show up to school to lead them to success, rather than putting them down and making them feel as uninspired as I did. This is one of my biggest goals in life and as a teacher.

What Kind of Teacher?

    Even though I love to work with little kids, my dream is to be a high school teacher. I love the maturity yet immaturity of high schoolers as they navigate their way through high school leading up to college. I want to be the teacher students feel like they can come to if they ever needed something, or just to talk. I believe mental health has been a huge issue within teenagers these days and I want to be the teacher to talk about it and educate students on how to handle mental health issues that they could be going through.

My Favorite TikTok Teachers!

My top two favorite TikTok Teachers are @classroomofburgess and @pbandj4thgrade. Mrs. Burgess is a high school teacher and in all of her videos I love how she communicates with her students. She lets them talk and communicate without interrupting or telling them off. She is the kind of high school teacher I want to be. Miss. Beall and Miss. Johnson are two fourth grade teachers and a lot of their content is dancing videos. I love how they have fun in their classroom and feed off of each others energy. I also look at their page for outfit inspiration. If you don't know what to wear to a teaching job, I highly recommend looking at their account!