Paulette Whitter

I attribute my success to the struggles I had to overcome, particularly going through a divorce. As a woman, when you go through a divorce, it really took a toll on me as an individual, and I had to find myself outside of that. That's why I went back to do my master's degree. When I saw that I accomplished my master's degree with everything that I was going through, I was like, whoa, I'm strong. It taught me how to realize that despite the challenges you go through in life, you can still achieve by finding out who you are as an individual. That divorce was the lowest thing I've been through in my life, but it helped me to be who I am today. I look at life like anything can happen, nothing is guaranteed, but you have to find yourself and be the best that you can be. Because of what I went through and because I did my master's, it showed me that I can be anything that I put my mind to. I wasn't working, I was a stay-at-home mom at first, and when my husband decided to get a divorce, that's when I went back and pursued my master's, and now I'm pursuing my PhD. What caused my success is because of what I went through, that perseverance.

My advice is that you have to have heart and passion. If you don't have heart and passion, you will not be able to pour into your students. You just can't go into this classroom and think that, hey, I'm just teaching math or English. You cannot go in there with that mindset. You have to go in there knowing that you are going to help change these students to become better human beings, and not just going in for their academic papers. You have to understand that you're shaping lives, not just teaching subjects.

The biggest challenges in my field right now are that we don't get to choose the curriculum that we would like to teach our students. I've taught at private schools and public schools, and I've seen the private school students do better or on the same level. I said to myself, why is it that they're using different curriculum, but they end up at the same place, or the private schools are even more advanced than the public schools? As a teacher, I feel like that's something I want to see change. Also, with our students, we don't get to do much. They come to school, but we don't get to teach them values, principles, and morals that will help them in real life. As a teacher, we don't get to instill those things that we know as adults they are going to need for life. I do it in my class, but I can't do it for too long because I can't include it as part of my curriculum. On the flip side, there are a lot of opportunities in my field. With me having my master's degree in ethical leadership, I can become a Dean of students, which I'm pursuing right now and just waiting for an opening. I can become a curriculum specialist, a coach, a principal, or an assistant principal. There's a lot of growth here as well, and you can go to different schools.

The values that are most important to me are caring about what you do, integrity, respect, and perseverance. I think those are very important to me. Most of us would say these values are important because of our culture, right? I'm Jamaican, so integrity is very important to me. Values, the values that we have, include having respect as well. If you know Jamaicans, we're very respectful. Perseverance is also key for me.