Keyokah Mars-Garrick ’22 MA, a particular schooling instructor at Wheeler Excessive Faculty in North Stonington, Connecticut, initially attended Wheeler Excessive as a student-athlete. She was an All-State basketball participant and led the group to the state match semifinals. Mars-Garrick returned to the college in 2020 as an alternative instructor whereas researching her subsequent profession transfer and fell in love with instructing and particular schooling college students.
“I beloved helping college students with their assignments and located success in offering the assistance they wanted within the classroom,” Mars-Garrick says. As she delved deeper into her profession choices, she found that particular schooling encompassed the sort of assist and individualized instructing she actually loved.
With a ardour for studying and analyzing books, Mars-Garrick says she realized that changing into a particular schooling instructor was the proper path for her. She needed to make the most of her strengths to one of the best of her means and positively influence her college students’ lives.
After researching numerous choices, Mars-Garrick determined to pursue her grasp’s diploma in particular schooling at UConn resulting from “its accelerated and competent program” via the Neag Faculty of Schooling’s Instructor Certification Program for School Graduates (TCPCG).
“This system allowed me to attain my profession targets in a shorter timeframe,” she says.
Mars-Garrick already had a grasp’s diploma in enterprise administration and an MBA from the College of Hartford, the place she earned a Division I scholarship as an undergraduate pupil, and didn’t have time for a conventional program, particularly as a result of she was a brand new mother. Regardless of being a mum or dad to a new child, she says she was capable of handle and stability her graduate program at UConn.
“I actually valued this system and the assist I obtained from my household, notably my mom, who helped look after my child throughout my courses,” she says. “Additionally, the college and workers at TCPCG’s Avery Level campus have been tremendous supportive and versatile, and this system was essentially the most streamlined it may get that fortunately match my schedule.”
To seek out myself in a faculty that revered that I used to be a mother first and they’d do something to get me via that have, I used to be so grateful. — Keyokah Mars-Garrick
“One class, I needed to deliver my son as a result of I didn’t have a babysitter, and Professor (Joseph) Madaus was completely high quality with it. My son had his dinosaur headphones on whereas we have been within the throes of our statistical shows,” she says. “Everybody was simply so understanding. I used to be so grateful that I attended a faculty that understood that. If I didn’t have the identical degree of understanding and suppleness, I actually couldn’t have performed this system.”
“To seek out myself in a faculty that revered that I used to be a mother first and they’d do something to get me via that have, I used to be so grateful,” she says.
Sharing Her Cultural Heritage With College students
As a lady of shade and a member of the Narragansett Tribe of Rhode Island, Mars-Garrick’s experiences together with her cultural heritage began at a younger age. She says she first danced at a powwow when she was six months previous, balanced on her mom’s hip, and that her grandfather is a former tribal chief.
Mars-Garrick says she was named by her grandmother within the custom of the tribe. Her mom’s native title is “Little Fern”; from the Fern got here a “Fairly Flower,” which is what Keyokah means within the Sioux language.
Mars-Garrick represents her Narragansett heritage by giving again to the group and offering insights into her tradition. She says she has all the time been devoted to her cultural heritage and enjoys sharing her information with younger college students.
“Once I went away to varsity, there was a much bigger want to coach younger kids about Native Individuals,” she says. “I feel many youngsters suppose [Native Americans] actually don’t exist.”
As a student-athlete on the College of Hartford, Mars-Garrick carried out at powwows and visited native elementary colleges to coach kids about Native Individuals, dispelling misconceptions and selling understanding and appreciation of various cultures.
In a 2021 Hartford Courant article, Mars-Garrick’s mom shared that she knew her “daughter was blessed with basketball alternatives and that it could take her far and gave her an schooling.” However she was assured that “Keyokah will all the time maintain her Native American heritage near her. She’s so entrenched within the tradition and retains that historical past alive.”
For Love of the Sport and Instructing
After graduating from school, Mars-Garrick continued her love for basketball via teaching, together with stints on the College of Hartford and the Coast Guard Academy.
When she returned to her highschool alma mater as an alternative instructor, phrase rapidly unfold that the previous athlete was again on campus, and the college’s athletic director approached her about being an assistant coach for the boy’s basketball group.
“She will educate, and she or he is aware of the sport,” longtime Wheeler Excessive Faculty boys basketball coach Neal Cobleigh advised the Westerly Solar in 2021. “She is enthusiastic, passionate, and a pure. She’s a coach, and we would have liked a coach.”
Mars-Garrick enrolled with the Neag Faculty that summer time to earn her grasp’s diploma and instructing certification, and she or he continued to teach basketball whereas she was a substitute on the faculty and enrolled within the Neag Faculty’s program. Final season, 2022-2023, was her final season teaching with the Wheeler Lions, and she or he has since transitioned to teaching with the Smith Basketball Academy out of Connecticut School.
All through her journey, Mars-Garrick says she was grateful for the assist she obtained from others, particularly the academics she had in highschool who are actually her colleagues. She says their understanding and encouragement made her transition from pupil to instructor an gratifying and fulfilling expertise.
TCPCG helped me turn into a particular schooling instructor by making a rigorous curriculum we’d encounter within the classroom and methods on the right way to create impactful materials for our future college students to boost their instructional expertise. — Keyokah Mars-Garrick
Trying forward, Mars-Garrick says she aspires to turn into an administrator, doubtlessly a principal or assistant principal. She believes that her various experiences, mixed together with her robust instructional background, would put together her for this new position.
Mars-Garrick’s love for her job, her college students, and group fill her days with goal and success. As she embraces her identification as a instructor, a mom, and a member of the Narragansett Tribe, she appears to be like ahead to the long run with pleasure and hope, desperate to make an enduring influence on the lives of these she touched together with her ardour for schooling and tradition.
“TCPCG helped me turn into a particular schooling instructor by making a rigorous curriculum of not solely a very powerful data we’d encounter within the classroom, but in addition methods on the right way to create impactful materials for our future college students to boost their instructional expertise,” she says.
When you’ve got a school diploma and wish to discover the opportunity of changing into a instructor in lower than one 12 months, be a part of an upcoming data session for the Neag Faculty’s Instructor Certification Program for School Graduates. Be taught extra at s.uconn.edu/educate.
To listen to extra from Mars-Garrick, take a look at this video about why she likes being a particular schooling instructor.
