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USM MAT Graduate Gets Top Honors for Teaching

By Glen Meredith

(Article first appeared in Aspire Magazine, Summer 2006 issue)

"Have you ever read the book "Leo the Late Bloomer?" Well, that is me," says first grade teacher Sandy Bostic who completed her Master of Arts in Teaching at the University of Saint Mary on July 28, 2006. "I had my family first and then started my teaching career. I turned 40 and graduated from Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, Mo."

Sandy has taught first-graders for three years in Cape Girardeau at Trinity Lutheran School. For her dedication to teaching she was selected among 500 applicants as one of 12 Heartland's Best teachers featured on KFVS Channel 12. She is a life long learner and is thankful for her education at the University of Saint Mary.

"I have been fortunate to work with some amazing teachers along the way who have motivated me. I worked for 12 years at a day care which is part of the school where I now work. This was before I attended college. I then had three children and when my twins were two, I decided to stay home and open a home day care which I operated for five years. It was then I began yearning to teach and went to college. I was so scared."

Sandy finds many challenges in teaching younger children. "I do love first grade. They learn so much. I have learned that teaching is to share my life with my students and encourage them to do the same. I let them know when I make mistakes and that it happens to all of us.

I love to see how excited my students get when they learn something new or when they finally get a concept they have previously not understood. I love it when they read a sentence for the first time or when they discover something new in science and share it at home with their families. This is motivation for teaching. At times I believe that I am not making a difference and then I see those small steps and get very excited." Sandy says the future for education will always change and that as a teacher she will be learning new ways of teaching the same information.

"I know that my MAT program has been more intense than some of my friends who went through a different program. I will have practical information that I can use in my classroom."

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