ELIZABETH PLEMMONS

I have always been a civic-minded person.  Growing up, I was taught that you always help, no matter what.  I’ve taken this notion of helping and serving very seriously over the course of my life.  It started early for me, and truly manifested the day I walked in to my 7th grade choir room and raised my voice in song with other kids for the first time.  I knew at that moment that I wanted to be a music teacher and help others discover the joy of making music.  I took that enthusiasm with me to college at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, where I studied music education, and continued to serve my new community during my years of schooling and subsequent residency there. I took it even further when I moved to Chicago and started a music lesson program for at-risk youth in the Evanston, IL community, allowing them to access quality music instruction for little to no cost.

 

It was when I went back to school at the University of Wisconsin – Parkside that I discovered that I could really put this enthusiasm and belief in community service into action.  Through my Community Engagement course work, I learned the basic, underlying structure of civic engagement and what different pathways of service can look like.  I was shown how to take what I was learning and apply it to the clinical work I was doing in various schools within the community.  Each school had its own set of strengths and needs.  I learned what my mentor teachers were already doing to utilize the strengths and address the needs of their students within the music classroom, and how to apply these strategies to the teaching and service of my own students.

 

I have come to understand what it means to truly serve a community, even more than what I thought I already understood. This knowledge and experience have been invaluable to me.  It has made me a better teacher, organizer, and leader.  I look forward to applying this new knowledge and understanding to the future students I teach and the communities of which I hope to be a part.

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