My name is Payton Lund.

I am from the town of Chatfield, Minnesota and went to

Chatfield elementary, middle, and high school. I went on to attend Carthage College in Kenosha

Wisconsin as a business major for one year before transferring to Winona State University and

changing my major to social studies education. Transferring schools and majors was a very big

moment in my life because I realized that I wanted to attend a public university and more

importantly, wanted a career that would allow me to help other people, and teaching was that

profession.

It took me a year extra to realize it, but my high school history teacher Mr. Hilgren

inspired me to become a teacher. As I was looking back on what major I wanted to change to

after my first year of college, I realized that all of my favorite classes in high school were social

studies classes, and I genuinely admired and was thankful to all my teachers, especially Mr.

Hilgren. Mr. Hilgren made history come to life because rather than just reading out of textbooks

or memorizing dates, we read primary source documents, listened to lots of music, and even

acted out famous moments in history. My favorite lesson from all my high school was acting

out the Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education, in which I was the lead lawyer. It

was this style of teaching which brought learning to life that inspired me to become a teacher

and hopefully do the same for my future students.

After realizing that I wanted to become a teacher, I also realized that I had already set

myself up well to become a social studies teacher. I have always been interested in history,

politics, geography, economics, etc. and took more social studies classes in school than any

other subject. I had even participated in the History Day competition in which I made my own

website for a project. Not only had I set myself up well by being interested in social studies, I
had been a tutor while in high school to three fourth grade students in multiple subjects. I

recognized that without knowing it at the time, I thoroughly enjoyed both social studies and

working with and teaching kids.

While at Winona State, my knowledge of teaching has grown immensely, but to go

along with that, my excitement to teach has grown too. Through my classes, and more

importantly my field experience, I learned that it is crucial to make connections with your

students and not only teach them the content, but to help them learn and grow as a person. It

is more important to help the student grow as a person and teach them skills they will use for

the rest of their life, than to teach them the specific content that will be on a test. Very few

students in a social studies class will go on to a career in that field, however, all the students

will use skills like reading, writing, collaboration, civic engagement, etc. and that is what is

crucial to teach students. I am excited to teach these real-world skills to my students in fun and

active ways that bring the content to life just as my former teachers taught to me in activities

like mock court cases and studies of music in history. Becoming a teacher who does this has

become my greatest aspiration and I look forward to working as hard as it takes to become that

teacher.