Watching her family work when she was younger, Winona Elementary School teacher Marianne Keith was not initially drawn to teaching as a career.
“I grew up in a family of educators, and I thought I wasn’t going to do that because of how hard they work,” Marianne recalls. “My mom was a home ec teacher for middle school, and I think back to that time and how much time we spent in her classroom. I didn’t think I wanted to go down that path.”
As someone who found school challenging herself, Marianne also wasn’t sure if returning to a classroom was the right choice for her.
“I was not very great at school,” she says. “I was on an [Individualized Education Program] for reading and math, and I struggled. So I thought, well, I’m not the best at this, so I wouldn’t be a very good teacher then. But now I like to see it as one of my superpowers — to see the gaps that some students have because they’re similar gaps to what I had when I was a student.”
Marianne Keith came to teaching as a profession a little later than many teachers do, after spending over a decade working in natural resource management. She worked in conservation crews building trails and removing invasive species, and also worked with multiple organizations that went into classrooms and provided hands-on science education for elementary students.
“That’s where I realized I didn’t want to leave,” Marianne recalls. “I would get attached to them, and I loved seeing the relationship between the classroom teachers and the students. I realized that wasn’t something I could have if I continued in environmental education.” So Marianne went back to school to get her teaching credentials and began teaching in her early 30s.
“I tell students about my journey to teaching so they can get to know me and understand why I’m a 35-year-old teacher who has only taught two years of fifth grade,” she explains. “There’s more than one path to something. Career changes are hard, but I think they happen a lot more than we give space for talking about.”
Marianne did her first year of teaching in New Hampshire, having grown up in New England, but then the school where she worked closed. At the same time, her husband was offered a position with his company that would move the couple to Northern Colorado, and they decided to make the big move.
Marianne Keith Shapes Learning Around the Whole Child
Now wrapping up her first year teaching in Thompson School District, Marianne has loved her class of fifth graders and has enjoyed carving out her own specific teaching style.
“I very much believe in the teaching of the whole child,” she says. “As a hands-on learner myself, I try to remember for my students that there’s all types of learning styles, but I believe doing is the best way to learn.”
Marianne also strongly believes in positive messaging, and she has a math mantra that her class repeats aloud each day to remind them that there are many different ways to learn.
“I can do hard things; it’s okay to make mistakes; there’s more than one way to do it,” Marianne recites, recalling a teacher who changed her outlook on math when she was in 7th grade. “He made math fun for the class. That year with him, I went from getting Cs to getting my first A in math ever. I really attribute it to Mr. Kramer and his ability to make math fun.”
Marianne says she has tried to adopt the same attitude of openness and availability for her own students, and to ensure they know that mistakes can be valuable.
“I try to create a culture where they feel like it’s okay to make mistakes,” she says. “Some students are really afraid to show that vulnerability, especially in math. Everybody has their own journey. We try to celebrate mistakes, because that’s how we learn.”
