Hannah Kelly

Hannah Kelly is a senior in high school this year.

For most people, it’s a preconceived notion when friends find out their peers have siblings. However—for senior Hannah Kelly—most people are shocked to find out that she has not one, but two baby siblings. 

For the majority of Hannah’s life, she has had the luxury of being an only child. But it wasn’t until her beginning years of high school that living the only child life started transforming her life for the better. 

“So I have a real fun situation,” Hannah said. “It would have been 2020. My mom got pregnant after not being able to have kids for a long time and then [in] 2021 she had my middle sister; her name is Beatrice. She’s two now and then last year, my mom got pregnant again and in August, right before school started, she had WinniFred who is my baby baby sister who’s three months old.”

But even though Hannah shares such an enormous age gap, she has found a lot of joy in being able to take care of her little siblings. Hannah’s enthralled by the fact that she now has two tiny humans who look up to her and finds gratitude in being able to watch them grow up. 

“I got a huge age gap but it’s really fun watching Beatrice and Winnie grow up and like thinking like, ‘Oh, wow, this is gonna be like such a huge interaction when they’re in high school,’” Hannah said.  “I’m kind of teaching them about what to do and helping up their friendships and relationships.” 

However, as much as kids can be as sweet and angelic as they want to be, at times Hannah has had her ups and downs with being able to teach them. But if there’s one lesson that she’s learned from both teaching and being an older sister to two babies, it’s this. 

“I feel like over the last few years, patience has been a huge factor in my life,” Hannah said. “Just being like, okay, it does not need to be done right now. I can give myself as much time as I need but also like that might take a little kid more time to process what I’m telling them than it might an eighth grader or a high schooler. You have to say things and word things differently [and] I feel like teaching in itself has been where the patience has come from because I would not have been able to make it through eighth-grade teaching without patience. But taking that teaching experience and then applying it to my at-home life with my little sister.” 

In addition to this, it hasn’t been too much of a difficult decision to decide what career Hannah wants to pursue outside of school: teaching. Through the KCTC Teacher Academy program, Hannah has had the pride and joy of being able to teach throughout her typical school day. 

By engaging in tasks such as completing day-to-day teacher tasks and learning about a plethora of subjects learning about the mindset of children, Hannah is given the chance to learn more and more about the day in the life of a teacher. 

“In the Teacher Academy program, you spend as a year one student, you spend a good solid portion of the first semester, learning about how to teach learning about the principles of teaching child development, like behavioral management [and] classroom management,” Hannah said. “And then when [you come] back from Christmas break, you go into a placement, which is where your main teacher that [will] teach you everything. They get you a placement at a school with a teacher or teachers in a classroom and you get to experience what it is like to be in a classroom. You get to [make] copies of things, doing attendance, leading lessons, getting to know the kids, and just assisting students. 

Ever since joining the Teacher Academy at KCTC, Hannah has never looked back on her experience and has become more intellectual about her career and matured as a person because of the experiences that the program has had to offer. 

“[At KCTC]  they’ve taught me a lot about like, thinking outside of what I’ve been taught throughout my life and what has been told to me,” Hannah said. “

While she loves teaching, the thing that brings Hannah the most fulfillment is the memories that she’s been able to create with her two siblings. Hannah adores the fact that Beatrice is unapologetically herself and always puts a smile on her face while making the silliest faces and saying the most comical things. 

“I think one thing that always puts a smile on my face is when [Beatrice] discovered belly buttons, and would say, button, “ Hannah said. “She would go to my mom or dad and lift their shirt and take her finger and just put it straight in their belly button. And then she would do the same thing to herself. And then one day, I was talking to my mom about the fact that she hadn’t done it to me and how I was like waiting for the day that she did it and my mom asked her She goes ‘Hey Beatrice, Where’s Hannah’s belly button?’  and Beatrice looked at me and was like, baffled by the idea that I have a belly button and It was it was just really funny to look back on.”