Box 2003
College of Saint Benedict
Saint Joseph, MN 56374
September 1, 2003

Sister Ann Marie Biermaier, OSB
Chair, Education Department
College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University

Dear Sister Ann Marie:

My name is Ella Mentry, and I am currently a sophomore at the College of Saint Benedict. I am planning to major in Elementary Education with a concentration in science and am writing to you as part of the application process. In the paragraphs that follow, I will explain my reasons for wanting to teach. I will also summarize the personal characteristics and experiences that I believe will contribute to my success, not only in the teacher-education program but also in the teaching profession.

Throughout the first 20 years of my life, there have been many people who have influenced me in a positive way. Aside from my parents, the most important of these influential people were my teachers. In particular, my high school biology teacher, Mrs. Smith, has had a profound influence on me. She was not only an excellent teacher, but also a role model in the way that she nurtured and encouraged the learning of even those students with little scientific aptitude. In fact, it was while tutoring some of Mrs. Smith’s struggling biology students that I first discovered how much I enjoy helping others learn, and it was because of her encouragement that I began thinking about a career in education. I still keep in touch with Mrs. Smith and hope that someday I will be able to have as positive an influence on my own students as Mrs. Smith has on hers.

In addition to wanting to positively influence my students’ learning and development, I believe that the teaching profession is a good fit for me because I enjoy working with and being around children, particularly elementary-grade children.. For the past three summers, I have worked with eight-to-ten-year-olds in our community summer recreation program. My work supervisor has told me that I am a "natural" when it comes to relating to children, which is a good thing, because I just couldn’t imagine having a career that did not allow me to interact with them.

Other characteristics that I believe will help me become a successful teacher include my creativity and passion for learning. I enjoy planning lessons and am often able to come up with new and creative ways of helping students understand the content being taught. I also very much enjoy learning about new ideas and information. Since so much of our current knowledge is likely to become irrelevant in the future, it is imperative for teachers to be lifelong learners. I know that I will never lose my love of learning. Additionally, I am organized, self-confident, enthusiastic, and an effective communicator. I know all of these attributes will help me to become a successful teacher

I have had many experiences that have both confirmed my decision to teach and contributed to my preparation. As mentioned above, my jobs for the last three summers have involved working with children through our community recreation program. Each year I have been given more responsibility, and last summer I was made a program supervisor. This gave me the opportunity to work on the team that actually planned the entire summer activities curriculum. In our planning, we emphasized activities that contributed to the total development of the child,. not only intellectually, but also emotionally, socially, and physically. I did not realize that such an emphasis was an application of humanism until this semester when we began to study learning theories in Educational Psychology. I know now that I am very much a humanist and agree that promoting total development should be the goal of all education.

In addition to my summer work, I have also had opportunities to work in elementary school settings through my college classes. As part of Ed 108 (First-Year Field Experience), I spent one week in a third-grade classroom at Horace Mann School in Lakeville, Minnesota, and for my service learning project, I tutored a fourth-grader with weak reading skills at Kennedy Elementary School. During Ed 105 (Exceptional Learners), I spent a day observing a special education teacher and then conducted an interview with her. I have both enjoyed and profited from these "real-world’ experiences and am very much looking forward to the week I will spend at Risen Christ School in Minneapolis.

As I write this letter and reflect on all I have learned and experienced during this past year, I become even more excited about entering the teaching profession. Therefore, I ask that you allow me to take the next step toward this goal by accepting my application for admission to the Education Department. I look forward to meeting with you and will make an appointment for my admissions interview as soon as my application paperwork is complete. In the meantime, if you need to contact me, my campus phone number is 9999, and my e-mail address is elmentry@csbsju.edu.

Sincerely,

Ella Mentry