The journey of a lifelong learner
Hometown: Bellingham, Washington
Year in school: Freshman
Coffee or tea: Both. But my favorite drink is Enlighten Mint Yerba Mate.
Song on repeat: “Murder on the Dancefloor” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Favorite CHC Class: Poetry of Black Liberation with Courtney Thorsson.
Quote to live by: “Treat people with kindness.” — Harry Styles
Sierra Hawes remembers the time she sat in her fifth-grade classroom and decided that she’d seen enough. Too many times, she recalled, seeing some of her classmates break down in tears after getting reprimanded by the teacher. She knew she had to speak up.
How could students truly learn in this environment, she wondered aloud to her parents that night at the dinner table. Why couldn’t that teacher behave more like the one Hawes had in fourth grade, who fostered her love for reading, supported her while she struggled in math and gave the best hugs?
The thought of her peers’ emotional distress gnawed at her until she decided, with her parents’ help, to take a stand. The next day, Hawes marched into the school office with her father.
“You need to change or talk to this teacher, because it’s not OK with how she’s treating her students,” Hawes told the principal. The teacher apologized to the class for her behavior.
It was a moment that shaped Hawes, steering her along a pathway toward becoming a teacher. As a first-year student at the Clark Honors College, she decided early on to major in education and she’s considering staying on for a fifth year to get her master’s degree in elementary education.
In many ways, the Bellingham, Wash., resident is taking a page out of her parents’ playbook. Her mother is an elementary school principal and her father runs his own company advising and counseling high school students on finding the best fit for their college experience.
“I want to be a teacher, someone who’s caring, loving, influences their students, but is firm,” Hawes says. “I want to apply rules, and set standards, and add reasonings.”
Her home was a classroom
Hawes, the older of two children, was nine months old in 2004 when her family moved from California to Bellingham, about an hour north of Seattle. Kim Hawes had been a teacher and took a job in their new hometown as an elementary school principal.
At the time, her father, Sean, was a stay-at-home dad. Sierra Hawes remembers growing up and receiving positive reinforcement around education and learning. If she ever struggled in school, her parents would always make a point to ask: “How can we help you succeed? What’s going on with your physical and mental health that’s impacting your learning?”
She was an energetic child who loved to read, especially the book “Bear Snores On” by Karma Wilson. Whenever her father read the book to her at bedtime, she’d ask him to re-read it. He always fell asleep, she recalls, leaving her to shake him awake so he could continue.
Hawes remembers going on repeated trips to the local library for story time and singing. It was a time where she was able to explore – genres, storylines, and her imagination.
The family took dozens of trips to more than two dozen states. She remembers tearing up at the first sight of Mount Haleakalā in Maui because of its majestic beauty. Last summer, the family traveled to Europe, a trip that was interrupted by a 22-hour layover in Dublin, Ireland that included a run-in with a Customs officer over her sister’s expired passport. Her travels, she says, allow her to be close to her family as they learned on the go.
In school, Hawes had an affinity for the spotlight, dipping her toes into performing – though she admits to having stage fright early on. She participated in choir and later joined the dance team in high school, the only freshman to make it.
Dance forced her to “work hard and work out” and gave her the confidence to be a leader in the classroom. As a sophomore, she attended an improvisational dance competition at a summer camp. She remembers closing her eyes and picturing herself in the shoes of a Broadway star emphasizing emotion. She won the trophy.
The more she learned about herself and the world, the more Hawes wanted to become a teacher. She’s already applied her skills by being a substitute reading specialist last summer. She has plans to work at a summer camp in Maine to help oversee the dance segment.
“Dance taught me to embrace my love for music, push myself to learn new choreography, and find more confidence with my body,” Hawes says now. “Dance brought me my favorite teams and so many friends.”
Valuing higher education
Hawes chose the CHC because it allowed her to focus on liberal arts classes at the same time as prioritizing classes in her major. But it was the small, close-knit community within a spirited university setting that attracted her the most.
“I kind of came to the realization that (I wanted) a school that I thought I was going to belong to, not fit in,” she recalls. “I think I could fit in at a lot of schools…Once I toured UO, I felt like I belonged.”
Today, Hawes is taking classes in Spanish and math, and is now considering a minor in special education. She wants to take a variety of classes so she can be well-rounded – something she sees as a critical piece to become an educator.
“As a teacher, I need to consider what parents or guardians are observing as their idea of school and try to become a teacher who is the perfect balance of boundaries and kindness.”
As the child of educators, Hawes has an acute understanding of the educational system, and she wants to learn more. Her decision to declare her major early on stems from her desire to make a difference in the lives of students. Last fall, she took a class – School and Representation in Media – with Alison Schmitke, the undergraduate degree program director for UO’s College of Education.
Students like Hawes, Schmitke says, need to find ways to convey “how their skills can contribute to what they want to do.”
In Schmitke's class, Hawes learned about popular culture’s influence on schools and teachers that take into account factors such as race, ethnicity, class and gender.
“Dr. Schmitke’s class taught me to look at media through an analytical lens and not take everything in the media as 100 percent truth,” Hawes says. “As a teacher, I need to consider what parents or guardians are observing as their idea of school and try to become a teacher who is the perfect balance of boundaries and kindness.”
As a future educator, Hawes says she hopes young students in the future won’t be hewed to just one approach – the four-year degree – when they consider life after high school.
“Finishing high school, that’s a huge step,” she says. “Getting a GED (is) also a huge step. Community College: that’s amazing. Even just going on YouTube and looking up, ‘How does the world work?’ or using your resources and going to the library, looking at books. That is taking a step, and that itself is education.”
Schmitke isn’t surprised that Hawes considers herself to be a life-long learner who wants to help others in the classroom. “She sounds like a teacher,” she says.
Hawes’ goal is to teach at an elementary school and possibly one day become an administrator. She hopes to supplement her teaching with an emphasis on psychological and physical wellness, as well as on communication.
“I think I’m in the right place to learn how to make a difference,” she says when discussing her classes at the CHC and in education. “I am seeing instructors in action who care and show they have a complete sense of what it takes to motivate students to learn. I want to be that person for others.”