Blog Post 1 - MNGOT Clinic


Hello! My name is Ashea, pronounced Asia. I am a 1st year graduate student at UofM and in my 3rd-year as a Reading Corps tutor at Seward Montessori Elementary in Minneapolis. 

I have been with this school all three years and love it! 


  • Why do I think it is important that, as a future teacher, I learn about mindful awareness in the classroom setting and self-care strategies in my pre-service preparation program?
Being aware to me is the only way to be in the present and in reality with our world and with each other.  I believe awareness of self and environment, and the energy of others, to be instinctual in some ways, which is why young children seem so engrossed in their worlds *they are very aware of what is right in front of them! I also believe that as we get older, have more responsibilities, undergo stresses, and adapt strategies for coping, awareness becomes harder to tap into. Luckily, many people have figured out easy tools to help people feel more aware and therefore more able to be reliable to themselves and others. 
    As a teacher, I will need to manage the stress that comes with the job, the stresses in my personal life, as well as the stresses that my students are going through as they learn and grow. As a teacher, I want to be a solid support for them, and I can not help them without helping myself. As the great Royal Highness Ru Paul says, "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love anybody else? Can I get an amen up in here!" 
    My goals for this pre-service year are to find an organic routine of self-care that is sustainable and inspiring. 
  • What was my favorite quote from the assigned readings and why?
"When I do not know myself, I cannot know my subject-not at the deepest levels of embodied, personal meaning. I will know it only abstractly, from a distance, a congeries of concepts as far removed from the world as I am from personal truth." 
 The Heart of a Teacher, Parker J. Palmer
Change; Nov/Dec 1997;29,6; Research Library Core pg. 15

This part of the text really resonated with me because it shows that if I want to teach, knowing the material isn't enough. The information that I learn won't mean anything as an instruction if I can't relate it to myself, and to do that, I must first know myself. The only one who can teach me about me is me, so this is my great work before I teach. 
  • My Top 3 core
Compassion, Honesty, and Community
  • My Top 2 Virtues
Support and Inuition

My why ... 
I want to be a teacher because I feel at ease and in a natural place among children. I am inspired by their creativity and unfiltered ways of thinking and truely want to provide a place for kids to feel safe, supported, and encouraged to be their best self.

My inspiration and connection to teaching can be summed up in my appreciation and awe when I view kids ideas through artistic avenues. Whether this is a woodchip and leaf fairy house on the playground, or a vivid and detailed drawing of hope. Creation connects and I love to see all of their creations so unfiltered and free. 


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