Deanna Dunn

RE 5040

Teacher/Researcher

As I sit and reflect upon my decision to become a teacher, I have many memories of the path I have taken to get where I am today. From the time I was very young, I knew that I wanted to help others. I cared for my stuffed animals and my baby dolls just like my mother cared for my brother and me. Growing up as the baby, others always wanted to show me how to do things. This was in turn something that grew inside of me.

Having a brother three years older than me was a treat. Each day he would hurry home to share all that he learned during school that day. He would sit me down and show me the words and sentences he wrote for his assignment. When he had finished that, he would let me choose a book so that he could read to me. As he read, he would stop and let me look at the pictures as long as I liked and he’d tell me all about the pictures so I would completely understand the story.

Later on, he began to bring home word cards. I also remember my mom flashing cards to me at an early age. She would pull out a large box that held printed flash cards and she would flash them to my brother and me. After that, I would get the cards out at my convenience and work through them. I’ve always loved words. The sound of them has always been interesting to me and I’ve noticed that I particularly pay attention to how people speak words. There is a photograph of my brother and me sitting on the stairs in our house. He is about 5 and I am almost 2. Two painters from Spain were at our house doing some work that day. We both watched them and listened to them all day. Soon after they left, we began to speak like them. My mother claims that we sounded fluent and stills laughs about it to this day.

When I was in 4^th grade, I decided that my goal in life was to be a teacher. I was a very out-going and rambunctious young lady who typically served a grounding sentence at least once a month. During my grounding, I was allowed to take a blanket to the front yard with my dolls and teach them school. I couldn’t have friends over and I couldn’t leave the front yard so I found a comfort zone while ‘teaching’ my dolls. It also didn’t hurt that one of my favorite teachers was Mr. Beverly. He brought the world to life for me. He was able to transform the dull to the most exciting. He took my class on several field trips and I was able to experience things first hand. He was firm but kind and he showed me what a difference one person could make in my life. The books he read to us were some of the most amazing stories I had ever heard. He helped me realize that each book had it’s own special identity. From early on in my life I was intrigued with words. I now started paying closer attention to each book. I began to open books and smell the pages before I read them. It was an association tactic. Whenever I smelled the scent again, I would remember that particular book.

Further down the road I had another teacher who really made a difference, Amy Smith, tenth grade biology. She took the time, during a year that was very confusing, emotionally and academically, to get to know me. She was always pleasant; quick to say hello and genuinely wanted to know how I was. I wanted to be just like Mr. Beverly and Mrs. Smith. The two rolled together epitomized the great American teacher.

The road to reaching my goal was not an easy one. I graduated high school, married and decided not to go to college. My dreams of becoming a teacher faded. I worked in a retail store as an assistant manager and tried to tell myself that life was good. Many teachers shopped in the store where I worked and I would talk to them about their teaching lives. There were two teachers in particular that were always so excited about what they were doing in class and also about their students. I worked there for a few more years, changed jobs and tried to bury my hopes and dreams. During this time, I taught Sunday school, vacation Bible school and I would baby-sit for anyone that asked. I had a desire to be with kids. Shortly after my daughter was born, my husband and I found a way for him to go to college. I remember being a little jealous. I wanted to go to school and become the teacher just like I had planned. The timing wasn’t right, though. We made it through his first semester and then after careful research and planning, I found a way to go also. With just a little bit of time left before the spring semester, I finalized the paperwork and started college. It was hard. We both worked full-time and went to school full-time and had a baby. I am truly grateful for every single moment we dedicated to obtaining our degrees, because we had worked so hard for them. I graduated Cum Laude and my daughter and I started school together. I was going to teach 1^st grade in the same school where she was starting kindergarten.

It was now my turn to guide young children to read. The joy I had experienced at such an early age was still fresh in my head. I couldn’t wait to give the children in my care the greatest gift ever…the ability to read. I worked with many struggling readers as I trained in reading recovery and I felt their struggles. I also had the pleasure for feeling their joy of accomplishment when they finally read a book by themselves. Teaching had now become my life. I see each day as another opportunity to guide a learner to experience the same joy I had as a young child.