ESK Voices: Wendy Teffeteller
Our culture of lifelong learning begins with our faculty. We hire teachers who are experts in their subject area and passionate about sharing their knowledge with students. We then commit to their professional development to assure they are always expanding their knowledge base in both their subject area and how to best engage students in the classroom. Students can feel the authenticity of their teachers’ interest in them and their subject. Our culture of trust, honesty, integrity, and close faculty/student relationships creates an atmosphere of safety and personal well-being where extraordinary learning takes place. In our ESK Voices series, you will get a unique look at the faculty that make ESK what it is.
Today, we continue with a teacher who has been at ESK for two years, Middle School science teacher Wendy Teffeteller.
See below for more from Wendy.
What is your favorite part of the school day and why?
My favorite part of the school day is probably when the students are coming down the halls at 7:40. I love hearing the conversations they have because I really love middle schoolers. They come in for tutoring and you really get to see their personalities. A lot of times when they’re in class they are a little muted, but it’s interesting to see how they interact at their lockers. It’s also just a fun way to wake me up!
In what ways can you teach/engage children at ESK that you couldn’t at other schools?
What’s different here at ESK is that I have the freedom and flexibility of time, it’s not necessarily of curriculum, but it’s of time. So if I want to dig deeper into something or if I want to go outside and use the nature trails I have the opportunity. At other schools you’re very constricted with time and the demands of curriculum and pacing. Here, you have much more freedom. So I can spend a couple of weeks on a topic or I can only spend a day. It’s really nice.
How do you incorporate your personal interests into your teaching methods or activities?
I love doing in science. I love to be outside, I love doing labs and activities and being up. So I’d say if you walked into my classroom you’d see the same thing. I think the students need to be up as well. You learn by doing. I can only tell them so much, but when they experience it for themselves it’s so much more valuable. I like to do and I think my students do too.
What aspect of teaching at ESK are you most passionate about?
I think it’s forming relationships with my students especially with the small class sizes. Middle schoolers can sniff out a fake and forming a relationship with your students is so important for them to trust you and to learn from you. Middle schoolers don’t have to like you, but they do need to like you to learn. They need to be able to trust you and want to come to your class. You also get to loop with your children, I know the 7th graders from last year and that’s a real benefit here.
When did you decide to become a teacher and why did you make that decision?
I did not want to be a growing up, I didn’t play school, I actually made fun of teachers. So, I was in college and I was a pre-med major and I was taking every science class possible and I was killing my love of science. I was giving a campus tour one day and I was making fun of the School of Education when the Dean came out and was very upset with what she heard come out of my mouth. I said “oh, they color in there.” She told me to take a college Intro to Teaching class. I took it and I fell in love and I fell in love with middle schoolers during my praxis. It was great because you get to play and you get to do. That’s when my love of science started to come back. I had killed it in Organic and it got rekindled in practicum lab.
What is the most challenging part of being a teacher at ESK?
Challenging the students. By this I mean differentiating the curriculum enough where you’re challenging every single student at their level. It’s not just a cookie cutter. You have to make sure you are meeting them where they are. So sometimes that means creating multiple lesson plans in the course of a day, but I just make sure I challenge them.
Do you have a child/story which captures something you believe makes ESK special?
It’s the little things that ESK does. I think coming to the Blessing of the Animals was what first told me ESK was something different. You’ve got 4 year olds all the way up to 8th graders with their pets, teachers with their pets and it was just very nice. It encouraged and showed you that it was a family. That’s what told me I was definitely someplace different.
How is ESK different from what you experienced as a child in school?
Parts of it are very similar and that’s why I like it. We have the freedom to do different things, we aren’t as tied to the test. Where it’s different is that the students lead what they want to know, so they can pick and choose. We go outside so much more and we are really involved with the community and the service. I wish that I had a service component when I was in Middle School that showed me what was available.