"Natural-Born" Teacher Ready to Lay Foundation of Learning

Pardon the analogy, but if the most important step of building a home is laying the proper foundation, then first grade has to be considered one of the most crucial steps in a child’s education, right?

This is where they learn—not just the basic curricula (math, science, Spanish, social studies, reading), but the fundamentals of learning and living in a school environment they’ll need for the next 15+ years of their lives.

“It’s a really special age,” said Amanda Casario, who will begin teaching first grade at  this fall. “They come in as a blank slate, and you’re teaching them how to learn, how to be in school, and really just giving them the foundation they need to be successful for the rest of their life.”

Casario has spent the last three years at Baker bouncing between responsibilities, including being a paraprofessional, a volunteer and a long-term substitute, all in pursuit of her dream of becoming a full-fledged classroom teacher. It’s all she’s ever wanted to do.

“It’s just sort of an intrinsic passion for teaching, and I don’t see myself doing anything else,” she said. “I feel like it’s the profession that’s for me, and I don’t think there’s a more rewarding profession out there.”

Casario, a Rowan graduate, has been spending the days leading up to the first day of school learning the curriculum, yes, but also designing the feng shui of her classroom.

Elementary school teachers, unlike their middle and , have the same group of students in the same classroom all day. So as important as it is for a teacher to know what they’re teaching, it’s as (if not more) important to know how they’re teaching it, according to Sharon Burns, Casario’s mentor and a first grade teacher at Baker.

“When I’m setting up the classroom, I want them to feel safe, welcomed, respected and an important part of the learning community, and I want everything to be accessible,” said Casario. “I’m making (the layout) as meaningful as possible. I think everything in the environment needs to be purposeful.”

As one example, she’s created a colorful bulletin board on one side of the room labeled “Popcorn Words” (because what kid doesn’t like popcorn?)—with pictures of popped kernels representing every letter of the alphabet—for “words that pop up everywhere,” Casario explained.

This level of organization is critical, since Casario will be responsible for balancing a broad spectrum of subjects, on top of instilling the necessary routines of school life.

“It’s definitely a challenge … but it’s also exciting to get to teach the whole child,” she said. “Whereas in you may have just one subject—really it’s more content-rich—we’re teaching the kids how to learn, so when they get there, they can be soaking up the content.”

For many of Casario’s students, Thursday will be their first-ever full day of school. Managing that experience takes a special kind of person, Burns said. Fortunately, Casario is “a natural-born elementary school teacher. She just has that warmness.

“Sometimes I think elementary school teachers are born (with) that personality,” Burns added. “You really just don’t want (the student) to cry. If a student cries, you feel like you’re going to cry … Because they don’t know how to be in school, we have to teach them.”

Casario grew up in Moorestown and attended . Her experience there, she said, has unquestionably influenced her desire and her approach to teaching.

“I feel a huge sense of responsibility,” she said. “A teacher’s role is extremely important in the success of that child, and I always think of that quote (by Henry Brooks Adams), ‘A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell when his influence stops.’ And that is so true, and that just drives me to be the best teacher I can be.”