Sophomore Jarel Dixon is channeling his athletic and volunteer education experiences to become a future leader in the classroom.
Jarel Dixon is a sophomore at 外网天堂, majoring in Liberal Arts with a concentration in History with plans to obtain his teaching license in Secondary Education. His goal is to teach high school history.
“I want to teach history because I feel we can always learn something from looking at our past to reflect on,” says Jarel. “One of my professors’ freshman year, Pete Robinson, said, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes,’ and that has stuck with me because I feel it encapsulates what I love about history so much.” While at the Mount, he has learned valuable leadership skills that help him Light the Way for his teammates and future students. He hopes to create an interactive and engaging experience for his future students, in hopes it will help them appreciate the value history has.
To help prepare himself for the classroom, Jarel has volunteered at Delhi Middle School and Xavier Jesuit Academy. While at the Xavier Jesuit Academy, he worked with the Physical Education teacher, planning and leading games for the students. This opportunity helped him grow professionally and learn how different schools and districts are ran, he recalls.
During his time volunteering at Delhi Middle School, he worked in the Connections program, a tier two instruction program in a class of about eight students. The class, taught by Mrs. Miller, focused on helping the students with their phonics, reading, and writing skills. This was Jarel’s first time in a classroom for an extended period of time, and he was able to receive a glimpse of what his future career as a teacher would look like. Jarel explained that even though he plans on teaching general education and history, working at Delhi Middle School helped him grow as a future educator. “These students helped me grow and see what it would be like to be an intervention specialist,” he says.
Further, their classroom teacher, Mrs. Miller provided mentorship to Jarel, opening his eyes to how challenging and rewarding teaching can be in regard to the students’ lives, and how it affects them inside the classroom. “Even now when I’m writing papers doing assignments, etc. I think back to the small talks we had,” Jarel says.
One memory that particularly stands out to Jarel is the time that he worked with an English Language Learner student born in Guatemala, and helped him adjust to a new school, and even bigger—a new language and a new culture. “I would occasionally read with the whole class and work with them, but for most of the days I worked with him specifically, and it was a true blessing to be a part of his life—and you know, it’s something I’ve never forgotten through all my years of [volunteer teaching], as I feel like he was basically my first student.” This experience at Delhi Middle School ultimately confirmed his pursuit of becoming a teacher through his love for helping kids and seeing them grow.
In addition to pursuing his degree and volunteering in local schools, Jarel is on the football team, where he was mentored by the Mount’s football coaches to regain strength and resilience after a high school injury. Jarel tore his ACL in his left knee junior year, and then endured another ACL tear in his right knee during his senior year. Because of this, his playing time was limited at the Mount as he fought through setbacks from his injuries. "My biggest challenge of being on the football team is just simply being healthy enough to even practice with the team.”
During his injuries, Jarel was unsure if he would be able to play football again, but Coach Webb and other coaches on the team helped him. They helped him build back his love for football and being part of something that’s greater than himself, he explains. Despite the setbacks, Jarel is thankful for the coaches and training staff, and because of their support, he says that he is the healthiest he has been in years. He credits the strength and conditioning coach, Coach Webb, for supporting him through all his injuries.
“She still pushes me to try to be the best person I can be, and that’s exactly the type of leader and person I want to be because you can clearly tell she cares about you, and I’m sure other athletes can say the same,” Jarel expresses. “It’s been a blessing to have her as one of my coaches and someone by my side that I know I could go to, whether it be about sports or life in general."
Due to his injuries, he could not play, but he was still able to lift weights with the team. This is where he has grown as a leader. He wants to encourage others to work harder. “I’m trying to push them as hard as they can go because I know we all take the sport for granted sometimes, and it could be taken away from us,” he says. Overall, Jarel has taken what he has learned from his MSJ coaches and Mrs. Miller from Delhi Middle School, who have taught him to be able to better lead others whether on the football team, or within the classroom.
As far as finding balance throughout his academic career, Jarel has worked to overcome his struggle of time management and balancing his time between classes and homework, while learning the game plan and playbook for football. His tip for bettering time management skills is to deliberately schedule time during the day to do homework and to do be honest with yourself that some assignments will take a longer time to complete, and you must schedule enough time for that. He strongly believes that everyone is capable of being a good student. He is thankful that academics and athletics balance each other out in his life.
“It just really comes down to dedication and being able to sit down and get your work done without distracting yourself, you know, with your phone or being on the game,” he explains. “Also, I think athletics and academics give you a break from both by doing one or the other, even though it can be stressful trying to balance both at the same time. It’s important to just be where your feet are, whether that be on the field court or in the library.”
As for his future, Jarel hopes that after college and football, he can continue to Light the Way for others by becoming someone people enjoy being around. He continues to share with people that nothing should be taken for granted as he pursues his goal of becoming a teacher. After graduation, he hopes to help serve the greater community and inspire others to do great things, as he thanks the Mount and outside experiences so far for his journey. In gratitude, he declares, “I’ve been truly blessed by God to be given the life I have, and I’m very excited for the next steps, whatever they may be and whenever that will come, because I know He will always have me on the right path.”
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In the Mount’s Secondary Education Licensure program, we prepare students to teach, change lives, and impact communities. This program is for students who are interested in teaching individuals in grades 7-12. Licensures are offered in biology/life science, chemistry, integrated language arts, integrated math, integrated science, and integrated social studies.