By Carly Sitrin | August 16, 2024 Full article on Chalkbeat
‘This is our classroom, this is our home’
Marissa Rivers is another former paraprofessional entering the 2024-2025 school year as a fully certified elementary school teacher at Universal Alcorn Charter School.
Teaching is a second profession for Rivers. She started off in human resources and management, in charge of recruiting and interviewing job candidates. Rivers said when she was interviewing new, younger employees — mostly 17- and 18-year-olds — she realized they were “lacking in certain areas” that made companies pass them over.
“I felt that it was important for me to go back and want to be a part of resolving that problem. And how do you do that? You go back in the classroom,” Rivers said.
Rivers made the transition from the business world to the classroom as a paraprofessional in a second grade classroom in Philadelphia. But because her school was short staffed, she was asked to step up to serve as a full-time second grade teacher while she was in the process of getting her degree and certification.
“I was able to take everything that I was learning in my classes and directly apply it,” Rivers said. She said when she saw her students struggling, she was able to reach out to her teacher training mentors for help.
Her advice for other new teachers is to get students involved in the classroom rulemaking process.
“What I like to do at the beginning of the school year, we all come up with the class rules together, and that makes them a part of the classroom,” Rivers said. “It’s not like a directive, but it’s more of ‘this is our classroom, this is our home, and these are the rules that we are going to follow.’ And when we come up with it together, it’s easier for them to remember.”
Rivers said she’s most nervous about helping students behind in their reading catch up to their peers and to grade-level expectations.
“I want to make sure that I do everything that I can to get those students to go above and beyond,” Rivers said.
