Lauryn Kirkhart, BSEd ’15
Bell’s Hill Elementary, Waco ISD, second grade

“Baylor University: Educating Leaders” These were the words I read on a billboard every time I approached Baylor University’s campus. The standard of leadership was what I was taught by my Baylor School of Education professors, and now this is the standard I carry on with my students.

During my four years at Baylor University, my professors taught me more than just the material they were supposed to cover for their classes. In my reading classes with Mrs. [Linda] Cox and Mrs. [Margaret] Thomson, I learned how the ability to read is the foundation of all knowledge. Additionally, reading is meant to cultivate personal connections with the characters in books. In writing classes with Dr. [Barbara] Cassidy, I learned how to value all artistic skills like story telling, penmanship, and paying attention to small detail. In my math class, Dr. [Sandi] Cooper explained how math is interconnected with everything.  She used the idea of story to introduce math concepts like measurements and multiplication.

All my professors made my education come alive. Their focal point wasn’t simply teaching the curriculum with hopes the information settled as good seed in my mind. My professors at Baylor instilled their passion for learning inside my soul by guiding me to make personal connections with the curriculum just as they had done before me. It was almost as if instead of throwing seeds of cold, hard, facts to me, my professors transplanted sprouts that had already been cultivated by their wisdom and passion into the fertile ground of my heart, so that I could continue to care for my own desire for teaching. That transplant was an exchange of wisdom and passion that I will carry on for forever.

After graduating in May 2015, I took that billboard that welcomed everyone into Baylor University’s vision of building leaders, and in my mind I planted it right outside my classroom door at Bell’s Hill Elementary School in Waco, Texas. On the first day of school, I referred to my students as leaders, and while we learned about reading, writing, math, English, science, and social studies, we went on adventures! My second graders and I completed an author’s study over the authors Kevin Henkes, Mo Willems,  Laura Numeroff, and read the novel Because of Winn Dixie. We learned about the characters in each book and made connections of struggles within our own lives. In math, we studied animals of the rainforest and calculated their lengths and their weights in standard form, word form, and expanded form. We learned about producers and consumers by hosting a market day where we sold lemonade and popsicles.

My favorite project, the “How We Will Change the World Project,” required my students to write a book and create a music video of what occupation they were going to choose to change the world. My students dreamed of being paleontologists, doctors, police officers, teachers, and inventors. They researched colleges that would help them achieve their goals, and I’m proud to say that Baylor might be getting some of my leaders in their entry class of 2026!

At the conclusion of the year, I reflected on my first-year teaching experience and I wondered if I had done anything right. I wondered what my students had learned, so I asked them on the last day of school. Their responses were three words that we had covered all year long. “Leaders. Love. Adventure.” They also told me, “We are leaders, dreamers, and readers. Leaders love by helping others. Leaders always seek adventure.” And to me, if my eight-year-olds learned who they were, how they were supposed to act in this world, and where they were supposed to go, then I did everything I was supposed to do.

In one year, I got to share a spark from my passion for learning with my students — a spark they will continue to feed, a spark marked with leadership and learning.

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