22 Jul Humans of Head Start: Kayla

I wake up every day and choose Head Start because someone woke up every day and chose the same for me. I started in early childhood at Little Sunshine’s, but I said ok I’m going to go to Head Start because that’s where it started for me. That’s where I feel like I just found my love for teaching in general and kids because I was a Head Start kid.

My family struggled and there was Ms. Bobbie Hunnell, that was my teacher, she was just so caring, and she cared about me, but also my family. I feel like this is where it starts. There’s things about being here working now that I still remember being a kid doing. The breakfast table is a specific memory for me, the yellow table. You tell people “oh the kids will remember” and they do, I remember, I was that kid. We were having breakfast and we were having eggs and she scooped it and it fell on my plate and we just started laughing. She was just so good to be around. She influenced me to give back to others and I just feel that’s what I’m doing here.

Now that I’m an adult it’s time to give back to the ones who need it the most. I really just enjoy being with the kids; they’re always discovering something new and everything is so fresh and seeing it through their lens is so special. Just recently we got a new little girl, and she gets frustrated so fast, I think she’s got a lot of stuff going on at home. She got mad and one day I told her ‘let’s go to the safe area and let’s stomp it out and let’s say why we’re mad’ and she was doing it. Then 2 days later she went over there by herself and started just stomping it out, you know, saying it out loud, and I looked around and was like ‘do you guys see that? I taught her that’! On the stressful days, that’s what makes it worth it.”

Submitted by Kayla Talbert, OACAC Head Start Teacher Assistant

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