Nanny in Guelph, Ontario

Do you want a conscious, present, caring, connected, responsible, enthusiastic, engaging, fun, playful, energetic and enthusiastic nanny for your children? Look no further! My name is Sarah and I am all of those things and more! I love children and I love playing, teaching, engaging and doing activities! I am a great communicator and can/will work with you to discuss parenting/nannying strategies to make sure we are on the same team with the growth and development of your child/children. Have any more questions? Please be in touch! Hello, my experience with children is very extensive. I have head coached recreational gymanstics programs. Taught children's yoga at summer camps. Worked at a daycare full time. Taught ESL in Taiwan to pre-schoolers and worked as a nanny for two summer positions. If you'd like to get to know me a little better I suggest reading my letter of intent to U of T for this coming fall 2014. While I realize that applying to become a teacher is different than nannying, I still thought pasting my cover letter for graduate studies would speak to my experience. The letter below speaks largely about social justice and inclusion- which I believe are important, however, I must admit that in this case they are perhaps more relevant to my graduate school applicaition. Nonetheless, you'll see my skills and talents through reading the letter below. My name is Sarah Walsh and I am pleased to provide you with my letter of introduction as a component of my application for the Master of Teaching program (Junior/Intermediate) at OISE commencing in September of 2014. I have recently completed an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies (B.E.S) at York University in the spring of 2013 where I graduated on the Dean’s Honour Roll with Magna Laude distinction. It is my hopes that after reading my letter of intent you will see why I am an ideal teacher candidate. I have been attracted to teaching and social justice from a very early age. For example, in grade four I asked the principal of my school why students didn’t have the opportunity to teach each other skills and hobbies. The principal was intrigued by this question and helped me to set-up and run a program called Students Can Teach, which was a lunch hour club whereby students could sign up to offer workshops to other student participants. As I was a gymnast, my workshops were predominantly focused on teaching the other children how to do handstands, handsprings and cartwheels. This early and positive experience of teaching gymnastics resulted in future opportunities as a recreational and national level gymnastics and springboard diving coach. Furthermore, Students Can Teach was the beginning of my life long quest to create safe and inclusive spaces for youth to find their own voices. My years of training as a national level gymnast, coupled with my enthusiasm for teaching provided me with many valuable experiences. At 17 I was assistant head coach in a busy gymnastics club in Regina, SK, and two years later I was head coach of the young men’s gymnastics program in Nelson, BC. at the Glacier Gymnastics Club. Coaching these young men taught me about the responsibility and importance of being a mentor, as well as helped me to realize that I learn most through the act of teaching. My students came with a number of challenges that helped propel my individual growth. For example, I worked closely with one of my athletes to support him in his journey to combat his eating disorder. I spent hours after practice listening to this young man speak about his challenges and triumphs, as well as worked closely with the competitive stream to dismantle false notions of “the ideal weight” and to help foster critical thinking around the media’s depiction of the ideal human body weight and size. Another opportunity for personal growth in my coaching career arose when I realized that some of the young men in my group were modeling learned behavior leading to homophobia. Consequently, I organized a club meeting to discuss positive space initiates and to declare our space as a queer positive space. One of my athletes approached me a few days after the club meeting to thank me and to share that he was gay and had not yet shared this with anyone else. As a result of these and other experiences, I realized coaching ran much deeper than the technicalities of the acrobatic skills. I could see that my work as a coach, a mentor and a teacher also involved fostering critical thinking in my athletes and to be a model for social justice in action. In Nelson I discovered that my passion was not specifically gymnastics, but rather the art of teaching. In 2005 I decided to re-locate to Taipei, Taiwan to teach ESL to elementary and high school students. In Taipei I taught ESL at Little Cornell American English School and Kids Castle American English School for a full academic year. During this time I became aware of and fascinated by the various learning styles of my students. I took a keen interest in VARK (visual, auditive/oral, reading/writing, kinesthetic) styles of learning and made an effort to develop lesson plans that would offer pedagogical variety to my students. My love of movement expressed through dance, gymnastics, fitness and yoga became a central teaching tool for my kinesthetic centered lessons. It was during my time in Taipei that I realized that in order to pursue my dream of having a teaching career in Canada I needed to return to university. During my undergraduate studies I focused much of my research on environmental politics where I learned to see every space as an environment and every relationship and action as political. This process of learning to see every environment as an opportunity for political inquiry fueled my passion for social justice. My studies at York propelled me to reflect on my own unearned privilege and to acknowledge the responsibility that comes from having this privilege. Furthermore, the research that I undertook during my time at York demonstrated that discrimination continues to operate right here in Toronto, and that it can be lessened and hopefully stopped through educational reform that focuses on countering hegemony through anti-oppressive curriculum. Consequently, my goal is to be accepted into OISE’s Master of Teaching program where I believe I can gain the knowledge and skills required to help transform society through pedagogy that focuses on instilling our youth with the tools required to create an equitable and socially just society. OISE’s Master of Teaching program is my number one choice for a graduate school program. I believe OISE’s research-intensive curriculum development will support me in actualizing my greatest potential as a junior and intermediate level teacher. I have chosen health and physical education as my specialization because I am particularly interested in the ways in which proper diet, health, exercise and mindfulness meditation practices can support a student’s overall learning experience. Throughout my time in OISE’s Master of Teaching program I hope to research the ways that health and physical education curriculum can function as a supportive foundation for student’s overall personal and academic development. Moreover, I plan to research the ways that physical education can be used cross-sectionally to teach a variety of lessons through the kinesthetic and hands-on platform that it provides. I am also interested in broadening my own concepts of health and physical education by studying and learning from a variety of different cultural practices and traditions. I hope to learn more about health and physical education practices from various cultures around the globe in order to decolonize the methods by which health and physical education are currently being taught in schools. I am eager to create diverse lesson plans that will serve to counter the dominant Euro-centric based curriculum that is too often seen operating in physical education classes today. I hope to learn about the sports, games, exercises, dances, health practices and activities from a variety of cultures. It is my hope that decolonizing physical education will serve to create safer and more inclusive learning environments for all students. I truly believe that my extensive background as an athlete and as a coach, my experience as a hip-hop and yoga instructor in high schools throughout Canada, my work as a certified holistic nutritionist, my volunteer work with FoodShares’ school programs, my commitment to social justice and my academic achievements make me an ideal fit for this program. More importantly, I believe OISE’s Master of Teaching program is the right fit for me and will best support my research goals and career aspirations. Sincerely Sarah Walsh