‘Just go for it’ advice from valedictorian

From a body piercing parlour to teaching her own class of children has been a wonderful journey for Kimberley Siriett, who has been selected as the valedictorian at EIT Tairāwhiti’s graduation ceremony tomorrow.

Kimberley was chugging along quietly in her nine to five job as a body piercer but not gaining much satisfaction from it. The death of her brother, who was planning to be a teacher, jolted her into doing something more with her life.

She decided to study teaching.

“It gave me a new purpose,” she said.

“I wanted to make a positive impact.”

She chose to study her degree at EIT, partly to stay at home, but more because of the large amount of classroom training time EIT’s School of Education and Social Sciences offered.

“When you study in other institutions you do placements in schools but at EIT you go into the classroom twice a week and that’s what attracted me because I had absolutely no experience in education.”

The hands-on component has stood her in good stead, giving her confidence when she stood before her own class for the first time this year.

She is teaching year ones at Central School and loving it.

“It’s really rewarding — once you are in the classroom you can feel that you are making a difference.”

The fulfilment she gets each day makes the three years of study seem easily worthwhile.

At first she found it hard to get into academic learning but her lecturers were really supportive.

“Because of the smaller class size and the sort of people they are I felt I had a relationship with them and that made it easier to ask for help.”

Her advice to those considering degree studies is to go for it.

“When it gets hard just think about the outcome and what you can achieve once you start.”