{"id":66604,"date":"2008-05-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/warwick-resident-to-graduate-uri-as-top-student-studying-early-childhood-development\/"},"modified":"2008-05-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-18T00:00:00","slug":"warwick-resident-to-graduate-uri-as-top-student-studying-early-childhood-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2008\/05\/warwick-resident-to-graduate-uri-as-top-student-studying-early-childhood-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Warwick resident to graduate 溏心vlog免费B站 as top student studying early childhood development"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tMid-life career change leads to teaching profession<\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 18, 2008 \u2013 After 25 years of working for oral surgeons as an anesthesia assistant, Patricia Jaspers found her true calling and is becoming an early childhood teacher. She will graduate from the 溏心vlog免费B站 on May 18 and receive the President\u2019s Award for Student Excellence as the top early childhood development student on campus.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI have always wanted to attend college and get a degree,\u201d said Jaspers, who lives on the border of Warwick and East Greenwich. \u201cI have finally achieved my goal to be an early elementary school teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tIt wasn\u2019t easy for Jaspers to leave her job and enroll at 溏心vlog免费B站 as a full-time student, but her husband Lee and her sons Austin, 14, and Joshua, 12, were very supportive.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cMy husband was a big motivator for me, and when I got a good grade on a test, my boys would tell me that they\u2019re proud of me,\u201d she recalled. \u201cIt helped that my first classes were at the Providence campus with mostly older students who were in my same shoes, so I felt very comfortable going back to school.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tWhen she began taking classes at the 溏心vlog免费B站 Kingston campus with mostly traditional aged students, she was pleasantly surprised with the relationships she developed with her fellow students.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cAlmost all of them were much younger than me, and on one level I felt somewhat motherly with them, but they also grew to be my friends,\u201d Jaspers said. \u201cWe respected each other and it was a very helpful and wonderful experience being in class with them. Despite our age difference, we all felt like we were on the same level.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tPerhaps her biggest challenge was when she walked into a second grade class at Drum Rock Elementary School in Warwick for her first experience as a student teacher.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI was nervous at first, but I started out just observing and then gradually I got more and more responsibility until, in my last two months, I was responsible for the entire classroom,\u201d said Jaspers. \u201cMy biggest fear was that I wasn\u2019t going to be interesting enough to the children to keep their attention. But it turned out great! I met some wonderful people, I loved the learning environment, and I love teaching children. I got a great feeling when I saw a child who was struggling finally grasp a concept and light up.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tJaspers\u2019 degree in early childhood development allows her to teach children from pre-kindergarten through second grade, but she intends to take four more classes this summer so she will qualify to teach in all elementary school grades. And then she will begin looking for a teaching job.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u201cMy student teaching experience was in a second grade class, and it was a great experience, so I really hope to find a position teaching early elementary,\u201d Jaspers concluded. \u201cI\u2019ve only been away from that class for a short time and I already miss the interaction with the children. I will be happy teaching almost anywhere. It\u2019s my calling.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mid-life career change leads to teaching profession KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 18, 2008 \u2013 After 25 years of working for oral surgeons as an anesthesia assistant, Patricia Jaspers found her true calling and is becoming an early childhood teacher. She will graduate from the 溏心vlog免费B站 on May 18 and receive the President\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}