Jennifer Sabourin is the new speech assistant at Westford Academy. She grew up in Sterling, Massachusetts and took this job as a step before graduate school.

Q: Where did you grow up?

A: Sterling, Massachusetts.

Q: What are your hobbies outside of school?

A: I like to go hiking. Over the summer, I went to Acadia National Park in Maine and hiked up Cadillac Mountain to see the sunrise.

Q: What sports did you play growing up?

A: Softball and soccer.

Q: What made you decide to be a speech assistant?

A: This is kinda a step before potentially going to grad school for speech pathology, kind of trying it out to see if that’s what I want to go to grad school for. I did some work with speech in college so just building off of that.

Q: What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a teacher?

A: Probably that it starts really early.

Q: What has been your favorite teaching moment so far in your career?

A: Get to know you Uno with some students. That was fun, just to hear some background on them.

Q: When was a time that a student made you proud or when you were proud to be a teacher?

A: I have one student who is on the quieter side. So, the first couple of sessions, it was a little tricky to get them to interact. But this week, he has done a lot better […]. We were joking, and he shared about his weekend. So we finally got him to open up a little bit.

Q: Who would you say is your role model?

A: I think my supervisor now, Julie. She really gets into her students and wants to help them and has a nice passion for speech. So that’s really encouraging.

Q: How have past experiences with teachers changed your teaching style or how you approach teaching?

A: I had one teacher in high school who would pass out quizzes, and it became a joke where she would pass it out and say, “Don’t get scared, like it’s just a quiz, it’s fine, it’s not a big deal.” So, that […] has stuck with me, through college and the rest of high school and stuff, and […] now I’m like, “Don’t get scared. It’s not a big deal.”

Q: How do you think teaching has changed how you look at the world?

A: I think you kind of learn why students are doing certain things. So it can […] make you pause and take a moment to think, “Okay, what is what’s going on, whats’s the root issue, what’s happening?” rather than immediately jumping to a conclusion.