About me

I was raised in Upstate New York in a small farm town outside of Albany. Growing up with three older brothers, one with Autism Spectrum Disorder, I lived in a full house with lots of commotion and love. I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors, having spent summers at a sleepaway camp in Lake George and later working there. I then set my sights on Vermont as the perfect move for college, where I first attended Green Mountain College. There in Poultney, Vermont I realized my curiosity and passion surrounding child development and cognition, so I chose Elementary Education as my major with a Psychology minor. I later transferred to the University of Vermont and was able to participate in teaching practicums at multiple different types of elementary schools. UVM offered an abundance of different classes for me to take such as poetry, gardening, and basic American Sign Language, which shaped me just as much as my required courses. I'm now 25 years old, with my BA in Elementary Education from the University of Vermont. I live in the East Village and most recently I have been working as a full-time nanny for two local families, with kids ages ranging from 1 to 7 years old. Prior to moving, I was a tutor at Vermont's only Sylvan Learning Center. These opportunities have given me the tools to plan fun, educational activities both indoors and outdoors so the children I care for can have days filled with enriching play!

My experience working with children started early in life as I babysat for local families, most often doing date nights for a family with a two-year-old girl while I was in high school. As I got older I began working at the summer camp I had previously attended during childhood, YMCA Camp Chingachgook on Lake George in the Adirondacks. This was the first job experience I had where I felt that this was definitely my wheelhouse, and I knew I wanted to work with children for the rest of my life! As a day camp counselor, I was responsible for groups of ten kids, mixed gender and ages three to eleven years old. I would plan our daily activities each morning and get it approved by the director, then facilitate check-in with parents. My responsibilities were leading hikes, rock climbing, swimming lessons, and canoeing trips on the lake; while maintaining the safety and engagement of the groups at all times. Before starting the summer I received my CPR and Red Cross lifeguarding certification. During rainy days our activities included arts and crafts, team-building games, and reading. As I started to attend college and had extended breaks off of school in December/January and summer, I decided to spend some time doing volunteer work in Albany. The South End Children’s Cafe is a nonprofit organization that started initially to combat food insecurity in an area of Albany that is considered a food desert. They offer free after-school care to children in the surrounding public schools and end each day with a meal that the kids and their families can enjoy together inside the cafe, ordering off a menu free of charge. I took part in the after-school care, which included homework help, excursion facilitation, gardening, painting, cooking, and chess!
As I transitioned into life in Burlington the summer before transferring to UVM, I took up a job as a nanny with two boys ages three and six in a rural part of town. They had a summer schedule packed with camps and playdates, so a large part of my job was driving them safely to their appointments and engaging in swimming lessons. The three-year-old was beginning potty training at the start of the summer and successfully completed it by the end of my time with them, which taught me a new level of patience!
During the uncertainty that Covid brought to the education field, I chose to work at Sylvan Learning Center because they needed tutors during the daytime to aid students who were participating in remote learning. While a majority of the job was following a specific lesson to build skills in a targeted content area, I found that a lot of the kids attending these tutoring lessons had been significantly affected by quarantine. Not just academically, which was the purpose of them being there, but socially and emotionally the shutdown seemed to cause a lot of anxiety. Most had opted to be fully remote even as schools did reopen, and it gave me a lot of time with them to engage in meaningful conversations. In camp we would joke about being a “professional role model” but my position at Sylvan, although structured by corporate syllabi, really made that title feel true.

My time at Sylvan ended as I made the move to NYC, around August of 2021. This past year I have been working with two families, both in the East Village. In the mornings I was responsible for preparing two children, ages five and seven, for school and bringing them in by 8:20 am. This year was both of their first years in a real school setting due to covid, so it was important for us to set up a positive daily routine. After school drop-off, I would go to the other family’s home and pick up their baby girl (sixteen months old) to take her out for the day. With her I spent time at the nearby park meeting friends at the playground, teaching basic American Sign Language, picnicking, and watching the dogs in the dog park. In the winter we would often go to Ottendorfer Library and take advantage of their wonderful children’s section upstairs; reading together and engaging with the many sensory toys they have to offer. After bringing her back to her mother at 2:00 pm, I would go to pick up the two kids from their elementary school at 2:30 and begin our afternoon together. Responsibilities included the regular aspects of caretaking: prepping meals, completing homework, reading together, playing, and exploring the city. I believe in making space for children to feel like they have full control over themselves, so I try to encourage the kids to collaborate and create the schedule as a group. By offering safe and stimulating options and giving the children the power of choice, we built up a trusting relationship over this past year that I am very proud of.

I attended a Montessori school when I was young and believe in the ideologies behind it as a childcare worker now: children are capable and intrinsically curious. During my years in college, we spent lots of time in our courses learning how to teach the curriculum, but it was the hidden curriculum that goes on in a child’s world that interested me most. Children are constantly picking up on queues about how the world works from their surroundings, and that became increasingly clear to me the more time I spent in classroom settings. I want to help foster a generation of children who not only notice their surroundings, but feel comfortable enough to ask questions about what they notice, find patterns, and discuss it further with a will to learn. Childcare to me means meeting the needs of the whole child by showing them the respect, patience, and attentiveness they deserve!