My name is Ellie Drollman. I am a mother, teacher, and faithful catholic. I hold a Master’s in Learning Experience Design and put it to work creating lessons for students while being a full-time stay-at-home mom.
I’ve always loved to learn.
From a young age, it was always hard to say which was my favorite subject because I liked them all! In high school, I started leaning more into math and sciences in my AP classes. In college, I retook calculus because my AP credit only counted for pre-algebra, even though it was the calculus test! Math, however, became my favorite, and I earned my teaching certificate with a middle-level math endorsement from EWU. Then, the real work of teaching began…
My call to be a teacher began with working with my mother in her first-grade classes in high school. She had a love for learning, too, but a special call to serve her students. She told me her motto was “education empowers.” She is such an inspiration to me because, although I will never know all the details, she overcame many obstacles to even start her career. She worked extra jobs through college to help pay for tuition, as her parents did not see any value in earning a college degree. While watching her teach, her sense of humor and playful energy were obvious: using puppets as students sat on the rug, singing the Star Wars Imperial March as she would say, “Here I come, I’m going to check your paper and see if you’re working”… to name a couple. I knew I wanted to be like her. She wakes up every day, even now as a grandmother who I know would like to stay and watch her grandson, because of her belief in how “education empowers.” It is what allows students the opportunity to become good people and, as they grow, to not feel stuck because of things outside their control: money issues, family’s views, etc.
After I graduated, I worked as a substitute teacher. I was very eager to make a difference and to empower students. I enjoyed substitute teaching because I was flexible and adaptable. Give me any age group, K-8, and I could do it (well, middle school was sometimes difficult). My mom’s school had an opening for a 2nd-grade long-term sub halfway through the year, and I took it. It was great to have my own class, but it was a bit weird starting halfway through the year. The job became available as they were hiring for the next year. However, they chose someone with more experience. This was disappointing to me because I felt I did the job well, and they didn’t want me.
The following year, I continued substitute teaching. Another obstacle arose when the district sent an announcement stating that we could only work x number of hours per year because they didn’t want to pay us benefits. Luckily, I was working for a few neighboring districts. This was also announced in January 2020, and we all know what happened a few months later. The schools shut down due to COVID, so this didn’t matter in the long run.
Still, I was looking for a job. I was recently married in the summer of that year during COVID. Luckily, it turned out to be a small, beautiful wedding, and we were both happy. I had applied to the school districts over and over again, but the competition in my area was insane. My mom would hint that there would be about 100 applicants for one job. I started looking more broadly at my options. I never thought about teaching in a Catholic school, even though I’ve been Catholic my whole life and hold my faith as a dear treasure. I always attended Sunday masses, participated in our campus ministry in college, and regularly went to pray in our church’s chapel throughout the week. A teaching job appeared at the school in the parish I grew up in. Although I didn’t attend catholic school growing up, I had been in the building for the after-school religious education program. I submitted my application, and heard back!
I was nervous to come in for the interview. It was a very brief one and felt more informal than I was used to, since it was a small private school. I was initially hired to teach technology classes, but ended up teaching a first-grade class when the teacher needed to stop early for health reasons. My husband, also a teacher, was looking for a job, applied, and was hired as a technology specialist. I enjoyed teaching the first-grade class, even though it was working with a setup I didn’t initially create after a few weeks into the school year. There were many challenges this year. First, all the COVID policies were in full effect: wearing masks, desks set apart in rows, and making sure the entire week of worksheets and lessons were prepared on the Friday before to be ready for the student who only attended virtually. It was also a bit difficult because I didn’t have a mentor, and I was doing my best with classroom management under the COVID policies.
The next year was different, as the teacher returned to teach the first-grade class, and I was asked to teach technology and middle school math. My husband took the art and English classes in middle school. The middle school had 3 different-level math classes: one advanced, where students start algebra in 7th grade, then geometry; one mid-level, where they start algebra in 8th grade; and the emergent group, which follows the regular common-core grade level. The class I was assigned was the emergent group, with around 5 kids in each class. All of them really struggled, but through it, I did my best to apply the motto: education empowers. These students should still be challenged and realize their ability to keep a growth mindset. I again didn’t have a mentor, but I tried many different strategies to help them improve. Between the student’s negative attitudes, low work ethic, and the stigma that they knew they were in a separate group quickly wore down their and my morale. I thought, “I’ll get better with experience, I can do my best, I am here for them even if it’s hard, I’ll put in more work to find additional resources to teach them better because ‘teaching from the textbook’ isn’t enough support for them.” Things didn’t feel better, though, as it felt sometimes that no matter what I did, they would still struggle, they didn’t like my class, and in effect didn’t like me.
Apart from the struggles, there were many joys and highlights in my career. First off, by teaching technology, I had the opportunity to teach at the elementary level. Working with these students felt more natural to me. I noticed they naturally were attuned to me, probably because of my own personality and the fact that I’m at their level: I’m 4’10’’. I also loved teaching computers because it felt low-stakes. I didn’t feel the pressure of “I have to get the students to learn this by x date, or we’ll get behind and…… and…. and….”
My work in math and computers with students continued for four more years. My pursuit of a Master's degree began right when my husband and I found out we were expecting. I decided to earn a degree in learning experience design and e-learning from WGU. I took maternity leave for half a year and a brief break from my studies when my son was born. I taught for a full year after that before deciding to take a break from teaching full-time to stay home with my 1-year-old son.
Currently, my mission is to be a stay-at-home mom, but I still love learning so much that I am developing e-learning units in my free time. My husband has the “honor” of being my lesson tester with his students. He teaches technology/computers to K-8 students, the same class I taught for 4 years at our local Catholic school before taking time to raise my boy. When not busy with these things, I enjoy crochet/knitting, playing board games, and family outings. I also teach a religious education class once a week in the evenings at our church.
In a nutshell, my goal is to create a place to share my experiences as a teacher and the resources I develop. It can be difficult to find resources that are differentiated/accessible to students, engaging, and developed with a human-centered design approach. Beyond that, I want to encourage those who are teaching that their work matters. It can be difficult at times, and it is challenging when students learn differently and are each unique individuals. Working with other teacher professionals is also wonderful, because there’s lots to learn from them. I left the teaching field as I began to have the right experience and made it through the worst of covid. My biggest lightbulb-on moment, however, was education empowers. At the end of the day, there are many things that don’t really matter that are made into big deals. Teachers, you navigate waters that are constantly changing, but through it all the little things make the difference: smiling when you don’t feel up for it, reacting to student behavior with humor, and being okay if the work order to have something fixed is ignored even after asking multiple times. So keep that lightbulb on, give your students that lightbulb moment… and keep journeying. I will be!
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