Thrive Superstar Awards: Madeline Young

Today’s article is on possibly the sweetest teacher at Thrive’s Juanita campus; Madeline Young.

Ms. Madeline has lived in San Diego for about 10 years and graduated from the University of San Diego where while she studied sociology and made her final decision to become a teacher. She began her journey at Thrive last year where she apprenticed under Ms. Bekah {another awesome Thrive teacher}, while also performing as an Academic Coach. This year has been Ms. Madeline’s first full year of teaching.

Ms. Madeline’s day begins when she arrives at school at around 7:30 AM to prepare the activities for the day and when the kids arrive, they enjoy some morning playtime before their own Morning Meeting and on with the plan for the day. Throughout the interview, Ms. Madeline continuously referred to her students as “my kids” which sincerely resonated with me that Thrive teachers not only feel an academic sense of responsibility with the students but also a level of care and personal connection on a level much stronger than the common teacher.

Ms. Madeline is a rarity because being a teacher is not just another job for her. As a child, she even used to pretend to be a teacher with her toys. While other girls her age focused on the unrealistic fantasies of being princesses, Madeline had dreams of helping others in a real and genuine way; so much so that she even asked for a whiteboard for Christmas as a little girl. As she studied sociology in college, she decided that her future goals needed to incorporate working with people directly while also making a difference in someone’s life. She then learned that she could get her teaching credentials while she pursued her degree thus finalizing her decision to become a teacher.

Thrive appealed to Ms. Madeline because of its non-traditional teaching approach, the personal sense of responsibility and the freedom to teach the kids in new ways. As a new teacher, she has come to realize what many other teachers at other schools fail to understand. She has seen that each student is different firsthand, even if they are in the same classroom. While she understood that children should meet academic minimum standards by age, Ms. Madeline has come to realize that each child may need a different approach to learn something as well as in their behavior management. One thing she mentioned during the interview was what she believed to be the most important thing that kids should learn; social-emotional learning with a community mindset. Seeing the pattern yet? Ms. Madeline described that as children grow, their strongest trait should be how well they communicate, work with others and generally get along with one another as “citizens of the world”. With the country in its current state as it’s divided by polarizing political agendas and infighting I must say that I agree with her and the rest of the Thrive community that children must learn these skills and hone them to use them later on in life.

Of all the questions I asked Ms. Madeline during the interview, the one where I felt that she had answered truly from the heart was when I asked her about her most rewarding experience. She stated that because she was able to see the difference with the kids as she reflected on how much they have changed throughout the year, she knew that her efforts had been positive and had really made a change. Considering this has been Ms. Madeline’s first full year teaching and was able to already make a visible, tangible change and instill positive principles that will stay with the kids for their entire lives while other teachers teach for forty years hoping that something stuck, I’d say she’s deserving of more than one small article.

Ms. Madeline: “Grow through what you go through”.