Hayley Filegar

What is your educational background and what positions have you held?
I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Slippery Rock University in May of 2015 with degrees in Early Childhood Education (PreK-4) and Special Education (K-8). I am a certified teacher in Pennsylvania. However, after graduation, I moved to Durham, North Carolina where I am employed as a 3rd grade teacher. During my first year of teaching, I also taught 3rd grade, but had the amazing opportunity during my second year to loop up to 4th grade with my class! While I love being back in 3rd grade, looping was such an incredible experience.

What is the most rewarding aspect of your job?
The most rewarding parts of my job are the connections and relationships that I am privileged to form with my students, staff, and families. Our school community is close-knit, inclusive, and honestly feels like a huge family! I love that my students from the past two years still stop in my classroom to say hello before their day starts. So much of teaching is about relationships, and I absolutely love watching my students grow academically and socially throughout the school year and even further down the road. Every student that I teach leaves a mark, and as a teacher, I hope to leave something positive with every single student who walks through my classroom door.

What advice would you give to current students who are enrolled in the teacher preparation program, and to SRU students generally?
Slippery Rock University offers SO many amazing opportunities for professional growth and enrichment. Take advantage of these! I was fortunate enough to travel abroad and visit Sweden and Ireland through the education department. We visited schools, talked to stakeholders, and engaged with students from these countries. Clubs are another great way to grow professionally during your time at Slippery Rock. I was a member of Council of Exceptional Children and the Early Childhood Club, and both provided many opportunities to volunteer and work with children. Spend as much time classrooms and working with children as you possibly can! Any experience is valuable experience. Slippery Rock also offers incredible events such as Backpacks to Briefcases for students and SRU alumni to meet and network with each other. Slippery Rock graduates are everywhere, and networking can be such a great way to get your foot in the door! I also spent two years as a Community Assistant in the dorms with ResLife, which was such an enriching experience for me and truly helped me grow as a leader. Slippery Rock has SO many opportunities, take advantage of them and continue to grow!

Name an SRU experience or faculty that had a positive influence on you and explain why.
All of my professors in the education department were inspiring, helpful, and dedicated professionals. I really felt like I was valued as a student, and that when I needed assistance, it was available. However, there is one particular professor that helped guide me throughout my experience at Slippery Rock, and is still offering guidance to this day. Dr. Linda Zane was one of my very first professors at Slippery Rock, and her personal experience and wealth of knowledge about early childhood education was inspiring to me from day one. When I took Dr. Zane’s ECE Theory class, we studied education in different countries, settings, and spaces. We learned about educational practices in Sweden, and my class jokingly begged her to take us there. Fast forward to the next spring, and we were taking the first education department trip to Sweden! It was an unbelievable experience, observing and witnessing firsthand educational practices that we had learned about and studied with Dr. Zane. To this day, Dr. Zane is someone who I look up to, and often go to for professional advice or to share my own experiences as a teacher. The faculty in the education department at Slippery Rock are high-quality, and committed to helping you succeed.

What makes a great teacher?
In my opinion, passion, dedication, flexibility and the ability to build positive relationships shape a great teacher. Teaching is a difficult profession, but being dedicated and having a true passion for making a difference in the life of children makes every bit of hardship worth it. As teachers, we must always be flexible. Educational practices, policies, and expectations are changing constantly, and so are the needs of students. What works one day might not the next. As teachers, we should always be ready to change our practices and our mindsets to ensure the success of every single student. Lastly, I believe that a great teacher is able to form positive and meaningful relationships with every single student. We want our students to become lifelong learners, and I believe that it is equally important for us to also be lifelong learners and role models for our students.