National track champion Nachelle Mackie has been running since she was eight years old. This fall she will focus her energy on something entirely different: teaching a fifth grade class.

Mackie, an Elementary Education student in the McKay School, will complete her yearlong internship at Hobble Creek Elementary School in Nebo School District. She is creating bulletin boards, seating arrangements and lessons plans for a real classroom now. Mackie said her positive experience in elementary school, and her mother’s example as a teacher influenced her decision to work with kids. Mackie hopes she can do for her students what her teachers and mother did for her. “If I can do something that can get kids motivated and wanting to learn that’s the thing I am going to strive for,” she said.

Mackie hopes her experiences running will help her accomplish that. While she has been running for most of her life, she did not originally see herself becoming a national champion runner. As she worked harder and harder, she saw things started to take her in that direction. She struggled through grueling practices and long periods of time travelling to accomplish what she has. She wants to instill that work ethic in her students. “I hope that as I teach I can show my students that when you work for things, they can happen,” she said. “I don’t want to just say that, I want to show them how that is possible.”

Mackie knows firsthand that accomplishing a difficult task does not happen overnight. She hopes to show her students that accomplishing something like improving reading levels can be a reality for them. She said, “I think that is the number one thing for them to realize: ‘if I have confidence in myself, then I can do hard things.’”

Mackie will practice some of that confidence as she prepares to teach fifth grade math. “I hope I have that conceptual understanding because kids are smart and they really do want to understand everything. Saying ‘just because’ is not going to work as an answer for them,” she explained.

Regarding her career choice, until this point, Mackie has considered herself only as a student on a planned track. Now, she says, “You’re still not quite sure what is going to happen, but it’s once you get that real life experience that you become a teacher.”

July 24, 2012