My name is Matt Hansen and I am a freshman at St. Norbert College class of 2017. I am an English major with a secondary education certification, meaning that I one day hope to teach English in a high school setting. I am originally from Naperville, Illinois. I had a mixed education as a child, meaning that I went through the public school system in Naperville for the first eight years of my education and then I did my high school education at Benet Academy which is a private, catholic college preparatory school. During my time at Benet Academy, I was a two-sport athlete playing both football and baseball. I was extremely blessed to have great teachers throughout my entire career as a student. This is what pushed me toward becoming a teacher. In high school especially, I had teachers that pushed my limits as a student and who made even the most unbearable subjects seem interesting and in some cases even fun. It was experiences like this that made me want to become a teacher.
This year, I spent my spring break at St. Anthony's school in Milwaukee assisting in an 8th Grade classroom. During that week, I spent time assisting the teacher with day to day miscellaneous activities, tutoring in a one on one setting, tutoring in a small group setting and teaching a class of 28 students. The only way that this was possible was through the TRIPS program at St. Norbert College. TRIPS stands for Turning Responsibility Into Powerful Service. There are many ways that the TRIPS program helps people in different ways. For example, there are TRIPS sponsored service trips that are focused on helping homeless shelters, building houses for those affected by natural disaster and even helping to restore the enviornment. Though the TRIPS program helps people in many different facets, our specific service trip was an urban education trip to St. Anthony's school in Milwaukee. St. Anthony's is a very unique school in a variety of ways. It is a private school with a public school voucher program. The voucher program is a system where the government issues a certificate of funding which the parents of students are able to direct towards the public or private school that they want their child to go to. The voucher system is a relatively new concept in the state of Wisconsin and is especially prevalent in the urban areas such as Milwaukee. St. Anthony's school is a very unique school in the sense that it has four different campus' ; one for the one for the preschool, kindergarten through fifth grade, 6th through 8th grade, and high school respectively. I was specifically working with a class of 8th graders at St. Anthony's.
This year, I spent my spring break at St. Anthony's school in Milwaukee assisting in an 8th Grade classroom. During that week, I spent time assisting the teacher with day to day miscellaneous activities, tutoring in a one on one setting, tutoring in a small group setting and teaching a class of 28 students. The only way that this was possible was through the TRIPS program at St. Norbert College. TRIPS stands for Turning Responsibility Into Powerful Service. There are many ways that the TRIPS program helps people in different ways. For example, there are TRIPS sponsored service trips that are focused on helping homeless shelters, building houses for those affected by natural disaster and even helping to restore the enviornment. Though the TRIPS program helps people in many different facets, our specific service trip was an urban education trip to St. Anthony's school in Milwaukee. St. Anthony's is a very unique school in a variety of ways. It is a private school with a public school voucher program. The voucher program is a system where the government issues a certificate of funding which the parents of students are able to direct towards the public or private school that they want their child to go to. The voucher system is a relatively new concept in the state of Wisconsin and is especially prevalent in the urban areas such as Milwaukee. St. Anthony's school is a very unique school in the sense that it has four different campus' ; one for the one for the preschool, kindergarten through fifth grade, 6th through 8th grade, and high school respectively. I was specifically working with a class of 8th graders at St. Anthony's.