Flo Bason

I completed a variety of internships while a student at UF, ranging from first to fourth grades. However, when I started job hunting in 2009 the school I wanted to be at only had a kindergarten opening. I applied and am very blessed to say I was hired. I spent the past four years teaching kindergarten, but as this school year closed I was asked to do a K/1 combo to start in the fall of 2013. I am really excited to embark on this new journey.

My philosophy of teaching is pretty simple -- I believe that before children will listen to us, they need to feel safe with us and know we care about them. I try to develop a classroom community every year that accomplishes these goals. I believe the ultimate goals as an educator are to instill in students a lifelong love of learning and to teach them how to find information. I believe that the beginning years are critical in setting the stage to develop a love of learning and it's in these years that children either learn to love going to school or learn to despise it. My personal goal is to have all my students be in the first category. The second goal is a little harder to explain. We live in a world where a good percentage of the jobs our children will one day have are yet to be invented. As such, we truthfully cannot prepare them for their exact jobs. However, what we can do is teach them how to think and where to go to find information. So, that's what I try to do.

To date I have received in excess of 16,000 worth of grants for my classroom, along with a scholarship to attend a Kagan training in Orlando.

I completed my bachelor's and master's at the University of Florida. My B.A. is in elementary education, with a minor in classical studies, and my M.A. is in education, specializing in educational technology.