Last year, I got the privilege to observe a 2nd grade class at Rich Pond Elementary school in Bowling Green. The instructor of the class made me feel welcomed into the class and even introduced me to the students. While observing, I noticed that she went around to EVERY student and helped them out whenever the student needed that help and didn't ignore one single student. When a problem did arise between a student, she calmly disciplined them and explained to them calmly why their behavior was not right in that situation. This showed positivity from caring for every student and worked hard to get to every student that needed help. It showed that she really cared for the students and cared for their future as a person and not just a student in the classroom.

Back in my High School, if you're last name was big in the county, you were considered "popular" and favored more than most by most teachers in the school. Like, my PE teacher would focus his care on the athletes and popular kids and would neglect the other kids in the class. I was an athlete, and my name was considered to be big from where I am from, but I still felt so weird about the favoritism and the neglected on the other kids. Thats what motivated me to become better than my past teachers were. Thats what motivated me to become a teacher in the first place to give future students a place to feel welcomed and to not feel neglected. .

In high school I was apart of the football team. This was basically a culture or brotherhood of its own that affected the entire school. The football team constantly volunteered for events and parents would help out around the schools constantly whether it was for games, dances, clubs, or even classes. This positively affected the school by allowing them to have more events due to the volunteering of the football team.

The summer before my senior year I got the privilege to work our elementary schools summer school program. This impacted me in many positive ways and made me fall in love with teaching and made me take becoming a teacher more serious. The kids that took this summer school program was majority of the kids who didn't succeed super well during the school year and they needed a little extra help. The kids brightened my eyes on many things. They showed me how not every teacher is super helpful and won't hesitate to move along knowing that kids are still struggling. This made me realize that students need good teachers that care about their students and want to make sure they don't leave kids behind just because it may take a little extra work. I worked with a teacher who did just that during this summer school program. The teacher inspired me by the way that she would go around to every student and make sure that they were getting what the assignment was telling them to do. Even if a kid wasn't understanding it she sat with them and explained what to do in different ways until the kid understood it. I think this is a quality that more teachers need. Being able to take time even if it means taking more time than what you explained it to the rest of the class because not all kinds learn the exact same ways.

A negative environment I have experienced with being a student in a classroom is I once had a teacher who didn't try to go out of her way to make connections with her students. I think having a connection, even if its a small one goes a big way. Students that share connections with teachers will often succeed better in that classroom because they feel respected by their teacher and they want to listen and succeed. I think that some teachers just try to get by, teach the content, and move on. This is something I have experienced in multiple classroom settings and would find myself not doing as well in those classes. So I think that being a open teacher and building relationships with students will help your classroom succeed throughout the school year.

My Sophomore, Junior, and Senior year of high school I was in advanced, AP, and Dual Credit English classes. Throughout the years this class had the same people and same teacher, which allowed us all to grow extremely close. This classroom experience could have gotten out of hand because many days we were talking about heavy topics that many people in the class had different opinions on. The teacher created a classroom environment that was positive and encouraged respectful debate which allowed each of us to speak freely without the fear of being judged or starting an argument.

On the other hand, I have also experienced a very toxic environment my entire Elementary, Middle, and High school experience. I was placed in a Spanish Immersion Program at a very young age which allowed me to go throughout school with the same forty people my entire life. This environment quickly became very toxic because the immersion students were expected to maintain the highest gpa in the school. When we did not reach this we were put into meetings and were lectured about how our grades were the most important in the school. This was very toxic because it caused all of us students to expect perfection from the first try rather than accepting failure as an opportunity to grow and get better.

I worked at a after school program at an elementary school. During my time working here we had a kid who had came into the program mid year with extreme separation anxiety, OCD, and social anxiety. He really struggled to make friends and build connections with the other students in the program because of his lack of social skills. One of the things his mom requested we do for him is allow him to eat alone during snack time because he has anxiety eating in front of people, so we set up an area for him to do so. One day one of the students asked why he sat in a different room to eat snack and us stuff of course told him not to worry about it. Later on that day the boy asked the kid why he sat alone during snack and he said it was because he didn't like eating in front of others. The boy then asked if he could go with him during snack time so they could eat together and the kid agreed to it. After getting permission from his mom they then ate snack together the next day which continued on for the rest of the year. Not only did they eat snack together but they also created a really special friendship which also helped with the boys social anxiety. The mom noticed a difference in the boy and his excitement to go to school so she thanked us staff and it was such a heartwarming experience to see.

When I was in high school I took an AP capstone seminar class which I really struggled in. This teacher made the class extremely difficult for me because I feel like when I would ask her for feedback or help she wouldn't give me the same help she would give other students. I feel like she picked out her favorite students and would give them the most of her attention which she didn't care for the others. I feel like I have witnessed this is a lot of my classes and one thing I have taken from that is that I never want my future students to feel as if I favor certain students over other students because that is extremely unfair and discouraging.

Something positive that has happened within my years of school was in my junior year of high school, I had a teacher who made sure she created a personal connection with each student. This teacher made me feel comfortable enough to come to her with anything and she still to this day, reaches out and makes sure things are going smoothly. I think things like this make such a positive aspect in school because so often students just feel overlooked and like there struggles and issues aren't seen, however, this teacher proved otherwise and it showed how many students valued that and truly appreciated that from her.

I have also experienced many negative aspects of school. One specific teacher in 7th grade recognized that the class was struggling within a certain subject, and instead of trying to go back and review that for the whole class, he got upset with the students and said that we do not pay attention and that our failure of knowledge in the subject is not on his teaching, but on our learning aspects. This makes a negative scope on a classroom because it makes students think they are not seen as students, but otherwise seen as a burden or something that the teacher has to 'deal' with. This creates negative outlooks on school for students and makes them end up disliking school and can create them to end up not wanting to try at all during school.

Throughout high school there was a teacher that made every student feel welcomed and cared for. He felt like another advisor you could go to that would help you with your troubles. When students had problems with the school or even with other class projects they knew that they could go to him for help. He helped create a positive school culture and motivated students to keep going. He certainly helped me figure out the path I wanted to follow in life in hopes of being that teacher for other students.

In middle school I experienced a negative school culture because of my English teacher as it almost seemed like she had a vendetta against her students. I dreaded her class everyday because of how stressful it was and how inconsiderate she seemed to be. It felt like the most important part of her class to her was putting grades in the gradebook instead of teaching us. Plenty of students that year actually switched out of her class because of how rude and upsetting she was. I hope in my future endeavors I end up being the complete opposite of her.

A positive culture I have experienced in school is my senior year of high school. I had a teacher who was younger than most the teachers and we had the most fun in her class. She allowed us to voice our opinions and help orchestrate how the class went. She often heard us out and used what we told her to teach us. Every student in my class would laugh or smile every day in the class. All of us students would leave class feeling better or in a positive mood than when we came into the class. I hope this is the type of teacher I become because she definitely made an impact on me.

A toxic culture I have experienced in school was my 6th grade teacher. She was my homeroom teacher and math teacher. She often made kids cry, called us stupid and other harsh words, and was never in a good mood or helpful. She personally would degrade students and do nothing to help us. She ironically brought my class closer because of the ability to relate to each other based on our hatred for her. Luckily us students and our parents were able to get her fired from being our teacher again.

When I was in high school, I loved theatre and I always participated in all the productions put on each year. Along with productions, I also took classes. Both theatre teachers made the classroom and rehearsal times so fun and those times were the best part of my day. They made it feel like a second family and we were able to talk to them if we ever needed to rant or if we needed to cry. We always enjoyed being around each other and the teachers because they made it such a welcoming, friendly, and kind environment. Having someone like both of them made high school a bit more enjoyable because we had something to look forward to during the day. I hope that I can be like them as a teacher and be someone who is there to teach them but also be someone of support if they need it.

In the theatre productions, there seemed to be some favoritism when casting roles. It didn't bother me too much but I know other students that were cast in the chorus/ensemble would sometimes complain or comment about it. They always felt that the same people were always getting lead roles and the directors were not giving any other students a chance to show their talents and be a lead.

Another example of a toxic culture was in my 7th-grade math class. I was in that class and was constantly getting picked on/talked negatively by a student. I would often cry in class because of what was being said about me. The teacher didn't do anything to stop the student and just kind of ignored it. I hated the class just because of the student and I don't like the teacher because she did nothing to help me while I was crying and feeling very self-conscious.

During high school I had an awesome English teacher. All of the students respected her because she was extremely kind and helpful. She was always there to answer questions and never minded staying a few minutes after class to help me with my essays. Even though I was terrible at writing, it wasn't as stressful in her class. We could socialize sometimes during class, but because she had our respect we would still stay on track and be productive. A friendly class atmosphere made it easier for us to work together. We knew our classmates and felt comfortable. We would ask each other for help and collaborate seamlessly on projects. My English teacher created a culture of camaraderie that inspired us to work hard and work together.

In middle school there was a lot of favoritism in the music department. In my choir class I knew so many hard working, talented kids. They would audition for the plays, musicals, solos, but there were limited roles. The same 6 kids were picked every single time. These 6 kids were very talented, but they weren't the only skilled ones. The instructor chose to work closely with this group instead of including others. They got their own group training and got to do special field trips. Eventually the other students stopped auditioning or quit, because they felt all their practicing was a waste of time. The music teacher created a culture of favoritism that caused most of her students to stop trying.

In my senior year English class, our teacher made it known she cared for us as students and cared about our success. She created a colorful classroom environment that was a safe space for us to be ourselves. On the first day of school she made us take a survey that asked all of our favorite things (color, candy, drink, etc.) and during the year for different occasions she would bring in something for the whole class. As students, we could tell she genuinely enjoyed her job. She created an amazing classroom culture. Not only this but she made us better readers and writers. Her teaching methods made it to where we all could perform well and it has carried over into college. She had won teacher of the year for all four years I had been in high school. Other staff always greeted her with a smile, it was apparent that she was well liked. She made students feel seen and is one of the reasons I decided to become an educator.

My junior year English teacher played favorites and it was well known across the school. When I was in her class, I performed well. However, I was not one of her favorites and she made it very clear. My best friend at the time was one of her favorites and our interactions with her were like night and day. Where my best friend got kindness and grace, I got shortness and sternness. I was never a rule-breaker in high school so I didn't know why I didn't receive the same treatment as my friend. This made her classroom a competition. Everyone wanted to be on her good side so what should've been a nurturing classroom environment was actually a cold and competitive place. I never felt like I was going to do well because of how this teacher treated me and others in my class felt the same. Other staff members never wanted us to talk about this teacher in their classrooms and often when it was brought up, avoided the subject. I was very glad to get out of that class and thankfully my grade was good and I had a better experience the next year.

During my senior year of high school I had a Sociology teacher who is the main reason I still want to go into teaching. He would always start the first half of class with talking about current news and having us pick topics we wanted to talk about. He always wanted to make sure we talked about things that we wanted to talk about. Even though these conversations were rarely related to the lesson, he still wanted us to start the class engaged. He always prioritized his students before the lesson. Everyone could tell he actually cared about his students and his job. He was passionate about his lessons and was still able to joke around with his students. He showed me that learning didn't have to always be hard and stressful. The positive impact he had on me and his students is the reason I still want to be a teacher.

During my seventh grade year I had a teacher who took pride in how hard their class was. They would give homework every night and would make all of them for a grade. They were very strict when it came to their lesson and because of that, students never really felt comfortable in that environment. They would always yell and even sometimes scream at their students. During my time in that class, it felt like I was never really learning because of how stressed out I was. It always felt like they prioritized memorization over actual learning. If the entire class did bad on a test or a quiz it was our fault. They believe that us failing was us refusing to learn. They never took accountability for bad grades. Students were scared of this teacher and that made it hard to learn. This teacher was another reason why I wanted to go into teaching. I don't want students to think learning is something that is stressful.

During my senior year of high school, my English teacher made it very clear that she cared about all of us. She wanted to get to know us personally, far beyond simply learning our names. Often times she would suggest fun things for us to do in class, like one day we had a class breakfast where everyone brought something to contribute. One of the things that stuck out to me most though was her efforts to attend student's events. If someone was in a band concert, choir concert, in the school musical, or if they had a game they were playing, she would show up. She wanted to support us in every single aspect of our lives. The positive culture in her classroom carried over into the school as students would leave her classroom with a positive attitude, a smile on their face, and a mind full of knowledge. You could tell that above all else she cared for all her students and wanted to see them succeed. She was one of the teachers who helped to inspire me to become an educator myself.

My senior year I had a teacher for my anatomy class who bragged about how difficult her class was to pass. On the very first day of class, she told us how only a couple people would get an A in her class which immediately set the tone for the class for the rest of the semester. She was very strict in her classroom and had no filter when it came to speaking to students. She would shame students if they had an opinion different from her own because she believed that she was always correct. She told me that I would never succeed and that if I do succeed, I should come back to correct her. One of the most negative parts of the culture in her classroom was how terribly she spoke of her own husband and kids. Her negative culture carried into the whole school as every student knew to try and avoid taking any class with her. I am sure that staff also heard all the students speaking poorly of her because you could tell no one truly wanted to interact with her.

In my junior year, I had an amazing English teacher that strived to make sure we could all learn throughout our own methods. She also made learning fun and didn’t treat it as a competition. She cared for us all and showed it every day.

I had a math teacher sophomore year that would often scold us and yell at us for doing bad on tests, and even one crumbled up my notes because I took them incorrectly. She was never kind when trying to get help, and it was really discouraging

During my senior year of high school, my intro to education class teacher Mrs. Williams did an amazing job utilizing assessments in a way to rather understand and help grow her students. For example, she would come visit us while we were doing our field hours to evaluate us on our ability to teach a lesson to our class. She would write down notes and give us a score based on our skill level of different aspects related to teaching a lesson. The evaluation grade we got never went into the grade book that score was made for our own self reflection to help us grow our skills for the next one. The score that did go into the grade book was based on if we did the work and turned it in. Her goal was to better her students not judge them. The result of this style of assessment lead to me getting a perfect score on the last evaluation and even though it did not make an impact on what grade I got I was more proud of the fact that I grew as an educator.

During my sophomore year of High school I had a chemistry teacher who graded based on perfection. On our homework assignments she would not let us turn in our work until it was perfect no matter how many times we tried. If we wanted to ask a question we had to come with questions ready to go during office hours out side of class time she would not answer them during class, and if we did she would get mad and respond with short answers or no answer at all. The result of this lead to me and several other students failing the class and having to retake it the following year.

An example of positive culture that I have witnessed would be when I was observing an elementary classroom for my education class that I was taking during high school. Whenever I would get to the elementary school, it would be right around the time the students were in the middle of small groups, and soon were sent off to their "specials" classes. During the small group periods, the teacher would put on the board names of students that would work in different groups and/or leave the classroom so other teachers could help those students; and during the students special classes, all of the 4th grade teachers would come together and discuss what they needed to work on as a group and what they could change for future lessons, etc. All of this to say that the teamwork and very easy discussion between the teachers was something that showed great culture for me. So, having all of the 4th grade teachers actively working together in private, students were able to recognize the way that the teachers all taught, and each student was aware of what they needed to work on.

An example of negative culture that I have experienced as a student would be a part of the same education class I was taking in high school. Whenever we (the students in the education class) weren't observing, we were in the class getting lectured, having discussion, etc. This class, of course, was a pathway class where it was linked with college, so we were essentially taking a college class. This was all of our first time taking a college class that would have an impact on our future as educators; however, at the same time, we were just high school students who had 4 other classes that we needed to worry about. On top of that, this was the first time this teacher was teaching this course. She was hired very late into the year and had missed several days of school already because she was out on vacations. That, firstly, was a very negative impact on us students because we didn't get the chance to properly meet her. Secondly, as she had gotten into her way of teaching us through the school year, she did not let us know that she would be grading us on the college level scale and NOT on the pre-made high school grading scale. During that same time, I was going through a very rough mental health patch, but she simply said that she knew I could do better and expected me to do so; that would be all the feedback I would hear from her throughout the rest of the year. It was a wonder to me that I even managed to pass her class. This impacted me, as student, because there was no set in stone rules on grading, work, etc. and she had expected us to already know how she was going to grade us. It impacted the staff because, as us students went and told the administration our troubles, they told us that they couldn't do much to help us until the next year when her contract had expired.

Last year was my first year in the Chinese Flagship program here at WKU. While the program is highly intensive, I did not realize the lengths the professors, tutors, and older students would go to, to make sure that all students feel supported. They provide many resources for those who are struggling and plan lots of events to build community rapport. Some of my best friends were made from my time in this program. They always encouraged us to strive to grow and fulfill our language learning potential. It encouraged the students to work hard and not be afraid to mess up. It gave the teachers a closer relationship with the students, allowing for better communication and understanding of the student's level of fluency.

In my time in high school, I became a part of my school's theatre program. The overall culture was one of competition: build yourself up by pushing others down. Only those with the best skills and the lead roles could be in the positions of "prestige". Even when I worked hard to get the two lead roles that I did, I was bullied by people who thought they deserved those roles over me. This happened often to all sorts of people. The teachers encouraged this competition mentality with the methods they used in auditions and rehearsals. Overall, it often made casts of students resentful and unkind to each other. It was not an emotionally healthy environment for anyone involved.

During my senior year of high school, I had a teacher who made reading and writing fun for me. I was never into the whole reading and writing thing or even the english thing, even though I wanted to be a teacher, so this teacher really helped change my view on english itself. I think its hard for students, in high school or any age to like a subject when the teacher isnt helping you understand the criteria. I think for me that was a huge part of the problem with certain subjects in high school. If the teacher wasnt interested in being there and helping me learn, it made me struggle to want to be there and want to learn. He was constanly having us do fun group activites in class, and just talking about what we were reading to hopefully get everyone involved and i loved that.

I also had a science teacher last year, who didnt care to be at school or teach. All they wanted to do was be harsh and hand out homework on things we werent even learning. I found it very hard for me to learn when the teacher wasnt even interested or when I couldnt even understand the homework every night because it wasnt even on what we were learning. The teacher would also get so angry when we wouldnt complete the homework and then when we would ask questions, they wouldnt be answered and we would be blamed for not understanding.

In high school I took normal classes and did not know many things about dual credit because it had not been something people really influenced to any of the kids that were not in the "accelerated classes" early on, so through high school I did not take any dual credit because I honestly did not really know how or what kind of steps to even take to do that at the time because my resources were very limited. My senior year rolled around and all my friends took some dual credit courses throughout their years so I decided to knock some dual credit math out my senior year, which I was extremely nervous about because I had never taken a college class before let alone math, but my teacher saw my nerves and did not let that stop me. He made sure to check up on me and genuinely made sure I was understanding the material which in high school did not happen very often. I ended up passing that course with an A and he wanted to put me in his dual credit college algebra the next semester so I could get that out of the way before college but I did not meet the act requirements to take it in high school, but he vouched for me and said he thought I was 100% capable and since my GPA was goo they let me take it. I passed that class with a B and it was very challenging but he really put his best effort in so I could get some of those classes out of the way and instilled confidence in me in a way by showing me that I can do hard things.

1. My senior year I had an english teacher who was very closed minded to the way that he taught. Our class was struggling to understand the readings he gave to us but he did not want to help us understand it. Instead he got upset that we didnt and made me personally, and im sure others, feel very small, which I dont like.

When I was in high school I had a teacher for my medical assisting classes who was one of the best teachers I've had in my entire schooling career. She was amazing at being able to cultivate a warm classroom environment while also being able to teach us the information she needed to teach. I don't know a single person who failed her class, but if you had come into the classroom to observe and saw the chaos that happened on occasion you might assume that she was unable to teach us. However that chaos and bonding was what made her teaching methods so effective, we had literal drug dealers jumping at the opportunity to answer a jeopardy question. Because of the friendship and bond she created with us we cared about passing her class and most of us did. I still keep in contact with her and me and one of my high school friends actually went out to lunch with her the other day!

A negative experience I had with a teacher was freshman year of high school I had come into class right as the bell rang, we had two separate buildings and I had to walk across to the annex from the top floor of the tower in 5 minutes. So, I came in right as the bell rang and immediately the teacher started yelling at me for being "late" and then tried to make me sing Let It Go from Frozen in front of the whole class. I refused to do it because A) I wasn't late and B) I am not singing in front of a class full of 15 year olds who I don't know. She ended up kicking me out of the class and I literally never went back to her class. Every experience I had in her class was awful she wasn't just strict she was genuinely mean.

I took a class in high school called cadet teaching where I would go to the neighboring elementary school and assist a teacher that was assigned to me. I remember sitting in planning periods with my teacher and the rest of her second grade team as they all bounced ideas off of each other and provided support in forms of advice, words of encouragement, and even favors. Their framework for how they worked their team meetings spilled over into other grades, as majority of the second grade teachers were tenured and I often witnessed how they’d give resources and advice to teachers newer to the school. Overall, I feel like the school had a very positive culture where most teachers worked collaboratively.