About Me
Although I may seem like a relative newcomer to Westbrook Elementary School, I actually began teaching here in 1985-- three months after graduating from Brigham Young University. I loved working with the students, parents, and faculty members at Westbrook, which made leaving it to raise my children in 1989, a bittersweet experience. My stay-at-home mom years were filled with soccer games, scouting projects, dance lessons, and PTA meetings-- with some wonderful travel adventures throughout the world mixed in.
I returned to teaching in 2004, earned my Master's degree in 2006, and found my way back to Westbrook two years later. I am thrilled to be back in this community-- working with such great children, supportive parents, and committed colleagues--in a grade I adore. I started teaching sixth grade in 1987, making the last classroom on the right of the Orange Hall, my own. Now it is Mrs. Pratt's room-- a small change in comparison to the dramatic one I made when I became Westbrook's sixth grade math teacher last year.
When I was in school, Math was my least favorite subject. It wasn't that I was bad at it, (my scores were usually good); I simply lacked confidence. I loved writing; grammar and spelling came easily, but math? I dreaded it as much as art! Now, after nearly 20 years in the classroom, I realize that it was not math (or art) that eluded me, but the "do it this way" methodology my teachers used back then. I needed more direction than watching my teachers write a few problems on the board before giving me a page full of similar problems, printed on newsprint still wet from the ditto machine. I needed to understand the "whys" before I felt comfortable with the "hows". As a result, my goal is to make math meaningful and accessible to all the sixth grade students at Westbrook. I don't want to fill their heads with memorized formulas, but with the foundation and confidence to create those strategies themselves.
I returned to teaching in 2004, earned my Master's degree in 2006, and found my way back to Westbrook two years later. I am thrilled to be back in this community-- working with such great children, supportive parents, and committed colleagues--in a grade I adore. I started teaching sixth grade in 1987, making the last classroom on the right of the Orange Hall, my own. Now it is Mrs. Pratt's room-- a small change in comparison to the dramatic one I made when I became Westbrook's sixth grade math teacher last year.
When I was in school, Math was my least favorite subject. It wasn't that I was bad at it, (my scores were usually good); I simply lacked confidence. I loved writing; grammar and spelling came easily, but math? I dreaded it as much as art! Now, after nearly 20 years in the classroom, I realize that it was not math (or art) that eluded me, but the "do it this way" methodology my teachers used back then. I needed more direction than watching my teachers write a few problems on the board before giving me a page full of similar problems, printed on newsprint still wet from the ditto machine. I needed to understand the "whys" before I felt comfortable with the "hows". As a result, my goal is to make math meaningful and accessible to all the sixth grade students at Westbrook. I don't want to fill their heads with memorized formulas, but with the foundation and confidence to create those strategies themselves.