Back to School... probably forever

hello! so, A lot of you have been asking about school and when I'll be doing my student teaching and if I'm EVER going to graduate from BYU and if I'm EVER going to get married. The answer is, YES... to the first part at least. I'm in my last full semester of classes, then (drumroll please...) starting in January I will be teaching 10th grade English at Lehi HS!

And check this out...

               
I'm going to fit RIGHT in! Go Pioneers!! ha! I love my life.

Along with that excitement, I also wanted to share part of my student teaching application because it briefly answers what many of you ask -- why on earth do you want to be an English teacher? Some of the experiences I've had leading up to it may help you to understand. So, here 'tis.


At age seven, when I produced my own newspaper, complete with fictional news reports and illustrations, I knew I wanted to work with words. My dad was an English major until he decided to  get a Master's degree in accounting to pay for the growing bills of his growing family. But literature and philosophical discussions at the dinner table were not abandoned. I am the 11th child in my family, and as such, my older sister was allowed to choose a name for me: Whitney Shalyn Lewis. With so many kids in the family, if I wanted to get a word in edge-wise, I had to speak quickly or write out my thoughts. Both I have found to be critical skills even as an adult. 

After my high school English teachers changed my life, I headed off to Brigham Young University to become like them. My appreciation for great literature deepened as I was enriched by the humanities on a study abroad to Great Britain. I was even fortunate enough to spend a week at Cambridge before my studies, and I couldn't resist the tantalizing chance to see Paris and Versaille for a few days afterwards.

The most formative experience of my life though was the opportunity I had to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in San Diego, California working with the hispanic population there. Learning Spanish and really getting to know people by going into their homes and becoming part of their families caused paradigm shift after paradigm shift which has changed my life forever. I have learned that people are what really matter, and their stories are what affect us.

English teaching is the path I have chosen to change the world, one self-conscious, hormonal teenager at a time. As Albus Dumbledore says, "Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic."