For as long as she can remember, Ella Tarvin has wanted to be a teacher. Growing up, she’d pretend to run a classroom while playing with her siblings, and in fifth grade, her own experience as a student solidified her dream.
“My favorite teacher would always take the time out of her day to check on us,” Tarvin says. “It wasn’t even just about the learning. It was about the relationships she made with her students. She would let me stay after school to help clean her classroom with her, and she was always coming up with fun projects for us to make learning enjoyable.”
Tarvin initially enrolled at the University of Kentucky as a freshman along with her brother, but both ultimately transferred to Northern Kentucky University (NKU) to pursue their undergraduate education.
“I’ve loved it here ever since,” she says. “I love the community feel, seeing people I know on campus and the small class sizes.”
“I love the community feel, seeing people I know on campus and the small class sizes.”
Tarvin’s student teaching took place near campus, at the St. Mary School in Alexandria, an experience she describes as having a community atmosphere similar to NKU’s. It also helped her land her first full-time teaching job, which she will begin after she graduates in May.
“I will be teaching third grade at St. Peter & Paul School in California, Kentucky,” Tarvin says. “I have 12 kids in my class, and I’m super excited about seeing them grow from start to finish throughout the year.”
While at NKU, she says that she most enjoyed her coursework in mathematics, crediting Dr. Ted Hodgson and Dr. Funda Gonulates for making math fun.
Tarvin recommends that incoming students interested in education find a core group of peers on campus.
“It might take some time, because I didn’t find my own group until junior year,” she says. “But once you find those people, it makes your time in college much better. Also, elementary education is a lot of hard work. It takes real creativity, and you put lots of hours into what you're doing. But just stick it out. And always go back to your why you're doing this. What's your reason for doing it?”
