Patience is her virtue
Metro freshman envisions career teaching kids
by Jonathan Kuenne
The Metropolitan

Teaching, one of the most honorable, but also lowest paying professions, is a career that requires a passion for the job.  Ginette Fitzsimmons, 20, Metro freshman, tentative psychology major, and teacher’s assistant, says that she wants to pursue a career in teaching.  Meet Ginette Fitzsimmons.

Fitzsimmons, a teacher’s assistant at Espree Child Learning Center, a private children’s center, says she wants to use the skills and abilities she has learned at the center in the past four years to pursue a teaching career. 

“I’ve always been told I am good with kids,” Fitzsimmons said. She says she wants to teach because she has a passion to help kids.  “I love kids, I’m patient, and I want to see them learn.” 

Moreover, Fitzsimmons also says she wants kids of her own some day, and that the learning center is a good way to become accustomed to them. 

A normal day for Fitzsimmons starts at 9 a.m. with the children reading to her.  “Some of the kids don’t know how to read, so we have to help them pronounce each and every word,” she said. “But I don’t mind; I know that my help is building the blocks of these kids’ education,” Fitzsimmons added. “The kids then go outside and play; come back in with their teacher, Ms. Paris;  do some more stuff – then that’s the end of my day,” Fitzsimmons cheerfully said .

Ginette says she is inspired to teach by her mentor, superior, and colleague, Vicki Paris – a teacher at the Espree Child Learning Center.  “She’s always so cheerful and happy about going to work every day – that is how I am going to be,” Fitzsimmons said.

Photo by - Joshua Lawton Ginette Fitzsimmons is a freshman at Metro after trying classes at Art Institute of Colorado for photography. Now she is working on becoming an elementary school teacher because of her love for children.

What distinguishes Ginette from other teacher’s assistants, students, or even teachers is that she has a tremendous amount of patience.  “Things don’t bother me as much as (they do) other people,” she said. 

Holly Rule, a colleague of Fitzsimmons at the Espree Learning Center, says she sees Ginette showing patience on a daily basis.  “(Besides patience), she always turns her projects in on time, works great with kids, but also, she really cares about them,” Rule said.

 “They (her kids) are going to be graduating soon; I think I’m going to cry.” Fitzsimmons said, expressing her concern for the children.

 Rule went on to say that the kids like Ginette and she can relate well to them. 

 Fitzsimmons, originally an English major, is planning on switching to psychology.  “English just wasn’t fun anymore,” she said.  But, before she chose to pursue English, she was heavily involved in photography. She attended Highlands Ranch High School, where she found her love for photography.  Before coming to Metro, Ginette attended the Art Institute of Colorado.  She transferred to Metro because she wanted to attend a four-year college and possibly earn her teacher license.  “I became sick of the photography (field).  Everything is becoming digital.  I don’t like that; I like the original process of developing my own pictures,” Fitzsimmons said.

Fitzsimmons says proudly that she has had several of her photos in art shows across the city.  One in particular, a photo of a lighthouse in San Francisco, is one of her favorites.  “My dad took a lot of pictures, was real interested in it, and I guess it rubbed off on me,” she said. 

Fitzsimmons is considered by her peers to be a kind and open person. “I’m sweet, nice and always friendly to everybody,” Fitzsimmons said.  “I used to let people walk all over me,” she added.  She said that because she was a ‘push over,’ she had to grow apart from this — and her best friend — to over come her shyness and become her own person. 

In addition to photography, Fitzsimmons was involved in choir since the second grade and all through high school.   Currently, she is not involved in any choir, but says she wants to join a band.  “I want to sing in a band, but I have stage fright so it might not happen, like in the movie Coyote Ugly,” Fitzsimmons said.

For now, Ginette is busy touching children’s lives in the learning center, being the ‘wild child’ she says she is, taking pictures, and looking for that ‘right band’ to join — one that will make it to the top, of course.  In the future, she sees herself on the beach with her twins, as a successful teacher, and with a loving husband.