About Mrs. Bocchino

I always wanted to be a teacher.  Growing up, I used to pretend that my "students" (my American Girl dolls) would take notes and take tests. I loved it. I also saw my mom teach.  But when I got to high school, I decided to abandon my dream and go for something different... fashion. I went off to college to Samford University and declared a major in Communication Studies.  I was thinking one day I would be a Buyer for a huge department store.  If I only knew what the Lord had in mind for me!

In my Cultural Perspectives class freshman year, I had professor that I highly respected and favored very much.  At the end of the semester we had to present our topics to the class. At the end of my presentation, my professor, in front of the entire class, asked me, "What do you want to do when you graduate?"

I told him about the fashion thing and he folded his arms and grinned.  He then told me, "I think you would make the BEST teacher."

And that was it.  My dreams of becoming a teacher came rushing back to me.  It hit me like a lightening bolt. A teacher.  Yes! A teacher! Why did I stray from this dream? That afternoon I went to my advisor and changed my major... to Elementary Education.

I went through college never once regretting my decision of becoming a teacher. In college is where my passion started to grow.  I went to clinicals with great teachers and learned so much about teaching.  I got great feedback from observing teachers that only confirmed my calling.

I then got placed in a school, Tarrant Elementary, with a 98% free and reduced lunch rate.  I never thought I would love kids with so little, so much.  That school confirmed one thing, I wanted to teach in an "inner-city" school. But this school was different then all the rest of the inner-city schools I went to. There was something about Tarrant... that I LOVED. So I decided to student teach there my senior year. Talk about life changing! My observing teacher is still my friend to this day as I type and the experiences I gained there are still with my today.  When I graduated, all I wanted was a job at Tarrant Elementary.  So June came and went. No positions available.  At the end of July I get a phone call from Tarrant Elementary to interview for a position of an ISS/Intervention Teacher. Yes, I'll take it! Anything to be in that school. Then a few days later, the phone call that would change my life happened. It was the principal from the Intermediate School calling me and asking me to interview for a sixth grade teaching position. I went in the next day and immediately following my interview, I got hired.

Sixth grade. BIG kids. Tarrant, my dream school! Everything was coming together.  So the next two years that took place is the reason I am blogging.  I have fallen in love with the teaching profession even more.  Do you want to know what I love more than teaching? My students.

So enjoy reading this blog. If anything, I hope it makes you love teaching just as much as I do. Feel free to take any ideas for yourself! And leave a comment. I would love to get to know you.


Mrs. B