Maddie Mollner struggled with her love of language arts and writing until she met her seventh-grade teacher, Mrs. Goodrich.
“She empowered me. She was different from other teachers,” Maddie said. “She made me love writing again, so I want to do that for kids. I want them to fall in love with school and feel that learning is valuable.”
Maddie is now a middle school education major with an endorsement in English language arts at College of Saint Mary. The Omaha Skutt Catholic High School graduate transferred to CSM in the fall of 2021 after attending a larger university.
“I wanted a smaller and accommodating environment, and I found that here,” she said.
Maddie has found her education classes “enlightening” and helpful in her job. In addition to her classes, the junior works part-time as an eighth-grade teaching assistant and in the extended care program at St. Pius/St. Leo.
“I take what I learn in my classes and do it in my job,” she said. “I see how much more successful the impact is. I see myself becoming a better educator as I work and in school. I can see what I’m being taught working in real-time. It’s not just theory; it’s practice.”
Maddie said her professors also offer real-life applications for future educators.
“They can give you examples,” Maddie said. “They can say this is a time when a particular strategy wouldn’t work, and this is a time when it would have worked. They are realistic that sometimes things don’t work, so you must find a different way. They equip you with tools but challenge you to devise alternative strategies to accommodate situations that aren’t as straightforward.”
Maddie has also gotten experience in the classrooms at area schools, including Papillion-La Vista South and St. Thomas More Catholic schools. CSM places students in classrooms a full year before most other programs.
“The people my professors connect me with for my practicums make me love those communities so much,” she said. “I have made good relationships with everyone.”
Following graduation, Maddie would like to teach English, language arts or literature at a Catholic school. She’d also like to be able to use her minors in Spanish and theology.
“I’d want to be part of a community that caters to students who speak different languages, and English is their second language,” she said. Maddie is passionate about integrating African-American vernacular English into literacy instruction and how it relates to an achievement gap for standardized tests. “It’s not about changing them or erasing their culture; it’s about making them proud of being able to speak two different dialects and languages.”
