A Brief Summary of Waxahachie Prepatory Academy and

My Mentor
Waxahachie Prepatory Academy (WPA) is a university-model
school. This means students attend campus classes on Monday,
Wednesday and Friday, or Tuesday and Thursday. The elementary
students attend on-campus classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
and the junior high and high school students attend Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays. On the alternate days, the students
continue their studies at home with their parents. WPA is for
students in grades K-12, and their tuition is $143 per credit hour.
The dress code is casual- casual being khaki pants and a WPA
polo shirt. There are about 135 students in total at WPA. WPAs
religious affiliation is Christianity and is associated with the
Association of Christian Schools International and the Southern
Association of Colleges and Schools. The total of classroom to
teacher ratio is roughly 10:1. WPA has nearly every sport as a
regular public school except for football. It also has five
extracurricular activities that include Drama, Yearbook Club, Math
Pentathlon, National Honor Society, and Student Government.
My mentor at Waxahachie Prepatory Academy is Joanna
Hentschel. She was the only one in her family that graduated
from college, and she graduated from a Texas Bible College with a
bachelors degree in Biblical Studies in 1977. During her last year
of college, she got married and worked as a secretary until her
two sons were born. She then became a stay-at-home parent until
her sons went into junior high school. At that point Mrs. Hentschel
started teaching in a private Christian school and received her
state certification through ECAP organization (Early Childhood and
Parenting). She taught at private schools for all but one year,
when she taught at a charter school in Waxahachie. Early in Mrs.
Hentschels teaching career she taught 5th and 6th grade; then
moved to 1st grade when she changed schools to go to WPA.
Mrs. Hentschel says she loves teaching in the elementary
department; she loves seeing the students get excited about

something theyve discovered or when they master a subject

(when the light goes on).
While observing her teach, I have noticed that she does things
very orderly and professional. The first day of internship Mrs.
Hentschel told me, The key to success as a teacher is to
establish procedure and routine. The thing that I love most about
watching my mentor teach, is the way that she makes sure each
student understands the lessons being taught. When a student is
confused about something, she explains it to them individually,
then explains it to the class again in case any other student is
struggling as well. Then she goes back to the original student and
says Do you see the difference? Do you understand it better
now? I really love the way she teaches like this, because I feel
like it really helps the students learn better.

Measurement of Success and Difficult Aspects of My

Internship
The success that I measure is really just my own. In order for me
to succeed I needed to make lesson plans and assessments for
the students of a Waxahachie Prepatory class that are up to Mrs.
Hentschels standards or another teachers standards and present
the ideas that they want taught in an efficient way.
I made lesson plans for fourth grade students learning about
prepositions and parts of speech, and through trial and error I
finalized the plans into something that the students could
understand and reapply to later assignments. The feedback that I
got on my lesson plans lets me know that I have succeeded, there
were only a few minor things that needed to be tweaked in order
for the plans to be perfect.

One thing that was hard for me was making plans that werent too
difficult or too easy. Although it may seem like making
assessments isnt a complicated task, it is a lot harder than youd
think. You really have to put yourself in the students shoes and
think about if you would understand the same things if you were
six and seven years old.

My Passion behind My Capstone

I firmly believe that behind every good student is an even better
teacher that supports them and helps them grow. I have always
admired teachers for their patience with even the toughest of
children to teach. Because of my love for school I knew that I
would always want to be a teacher and encourage students to
love school just as much as I do. I really loved my internship
because it allowed me to have hands-on experience with a
profession that I want to go into, and it helped me get an idea of
what being a teacher is really about.
When interviewing a first grade teacher at First Christian Day
School, Leslie Moon, she said that when she first became a
teacher, she underestimated just how organized she needed to
be. She says she didnt realize how not-normal everyday life
would be. The greatest part of being a teacher to her is how fun,
yet challenging teaching can be. I want to experience that
feeling as well, and that is why I want to go into the teaching
profession.