Many little girls dream about being dancers, cheerleaders and teachers. WITH STUDENT loans to pay, Decker is living with her parents, Robert and Doris Decker, in Bronson. The 30-minute drives morning and afternoon give her time to organize her thoughts going into a day in the classroom, and time to unwind going home.
Jullea Decker, new third-grade teacher at McKinley Elementary, fits the trifecta to a tee.
She danced for South Street Dance Company and was a member of the cheer and dance squads at Allen Community College. At Emporia State University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education last May, Decker was on the Stingers dance squad, and moved into a leadership role as captain of the team her second year.
Meanwhile, a career in education wasn’t her immediate choice.
“I was planning on majors in psychology and then pharmacy before deciding on education,” Decker said Monday afternoon, minutes after a covey of rambunctious students departed her McKinley classroom.
Dancing with South Street helped in her decision to switch her major to education, she said. In her later years at the studio Decker took on a teaching role with younger students, and as her college career unfolded, that experience helped her decide that teaching was what she wanted to do.
Having been active through her growing-up years also is an advantage for Decker, 23.
“The kids have a lot of energy, but I love the challenge,” she said.
Less than a week into her first semester teaching full time, Decker noted that her students, as well as herself, have expectations for what they will be able to accomplish.
But it’s not a cookie-cutter group; each child is different.
Which leads her to propose that as their mentor, she has to strike a “happy medium.”
Having 13 students, on the low side of an optimum number for an elementary classroom, will be an advantage as Decker strives to find the trigger in each that leads to their learning lessons they’re expected to master at the third-grade level.
They pretty well have basics of the three Rs, and in the weeks and months ahead Decker said multiplication will be added to their math inventories, as well as cursive writing in language arts.
What it means to live in a community will be the basis for social science.
“I hope to take my students on field trips,” she said, to give them a first-hand experience of the community in which they live and the greater community of the area.
She also hopes to draw on people in the community to bring lessons to life, on such things of how government works in Iola.
Book-learning isn’t the end-all in the class, Decker added.
She said games and hands-on learning will be a big part of each day’s class work, and at the end of the day 10 to 15 minutes are devoted to her reading from a storybook, currently “Because of Winn Dixie.” The story is about a little girl and a dog, a feel-good story that’s always bound to fascinate elementary age children.
In addition to dance and cheer activities, Decker also was involved in softball in younger years and enjoyed theater at ACC, an activity “I’d like to get back into at some point,” she said.
But, for now her time and energy are focused of what it takes to provide a good education for the 13 third-graders under her wings daily.
Fulfilling a little girl’s dream
