Journal 1: One Hundred Things That Make Me Happy

100 Things That Make Me Happy

Katherine's Weblog Debut

Hi class! My name is Katherine Dupuis, and I grew up in Barnstead, which is a small town in South Eastern New Hampshire where the only school served grades k-8! I only attended until the middle of second grade, and then my family moved about an hour down the tree-covered highway to Barrington where I continued school until 8^th grade. From there, Barrington School and the surrounding 4 towns fed into our regional high school, and of my graduating class, I wonder if anyone owned a cell phone- I know I didn’t! After bouncing around for a few years after high school, living with roommates in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, I decided to follow the sunshine to beautiful Oceanside, California. Here I decided that I had more to offer the world, so I enrolled in classes at Mira Costa College. After finishing up my AA in Liberal Studies and earning a Child Development Associate Teacher Certificate at MCC, I recently transferred to CSUSM! I’m a long way from home, and am waiting to see where the rest of the road will take me!

“Where on the technology continuum?” you ask… Well, if you rate it on a scale of A thru Z, I would say I’m at the spot where a young child is learning the alphabet and trips over the “el-uh-men-oh-pee” part. I’m competent enough to figure out the important stuff, but I don’t quite have it mastered or working well for me yet. Some recent developments in my technological life are that I have finally upgraded from Microsoft Works to Word (no more .rtf!), and my dumb phone got a major makeover- but I will still never pay for cable. It’s amazing to see how much apps have changed lives. Much like a child’s rapid acquisition of language, I plan to embrace change and grow exponentially during this semester as I learn to utilize the newest member of my family- my MacBook which I have named “Superfluous”. I feel a thousand pounds lighter because I finally have the tools I need for success, and I look forward to learning new ways to work smarter and not harder.

The mission statement wasn’t necessarily a factor in applying to CSUSM, but I can appreciate a lot of what is said in it. While taking classes towards both liberal studies and child development degrees, I understand the importance of knowing both what you teach and how you teach it. I am an advocate for child or student-centered education, and as a life-long learner I am continually challenging myself to both chase after my own interests and find out more to foster the teachable moments of my future students. The support of the School of Education in students’ success is admirable, and we are on our way to creating positive change!