001Traditional teaching or traditional kind of philosophy is a whole group, teacher directed instruction. Where the class is working together as a whole. At MTA we use Saxon for our math curriculum and Spaulding for our reading and language arts. Both of those programs allow me to maintain a traditional philosophy while teaching, and also holding expectations high. What that looks like throughout my day, it is very teacher-directed, and all new learning stems from me. So Saxon math is really important for kiddos who thrive on that routine process each day. The lesson, it's going to be a new lesson and topic, a new standard that we're addressing, but the routine stays consistent every day. Being in a traditional philosophy, there's really no surprises and it's neat to see how kids thrive on the consistency of both of those
002curriculums. Instead of a student-led approach, it's more of a teacher-led approach. So the teacher is guiding the learning, the kids can still work together and think together but there is still that, back to that teacher-directed idea of learning. We use a core knowledge based curriculum, so my curriculum ties in with all of the other core knowledge teachers as well. So we incorporate the arts, PE, music, all within the core subjects. The arts really benefit our students greatly because it has been documented proof that schools that do implement the arts in their programs on a regular daily basis, they do perform better on test grades, performance wise, and even socially. It's another outlet for students to be a team. There's so many special things about MTA. The first thing that comes to mind for me, is
003the kids. It's so special to have kids that have a passion and a fire for learning, and genuinely care about it and excited to come to school each day, and that makes my job so exciting to come to work everyday. We have such supportive parents, and such supportive students that work well with teachers. The teachers want to be here and want to do what's best for the kids. I think MTA is special in the sense that it is a K through 8 school, it's the only one in the district that goes from the very littles all the way up to middle school level and its also a very small, close knit community. Madison is such a wonderful district, I feel like the district administration and the board is so supportive of their teachers, of the
004staff in Madison. Like I said before, the parents are wonderful, um, I think it's just a very supportive district that wants to do what's best for kids. My favorite thing about my teachers are they're funny and like every time we're confused they explain it where we can understand. The teachers are all enthusiastic and they all are so happy to be here and teaching everybody and that the students here are great. When I grow up I want to be a musician or a lawyer. I want to work somewhere on Broadway, maybe as an actress, maybe in the orchestra pit, but somewhere there.