Salutations!

My name is Dawn Russell. I teach Transition 1 at Porter Elementary School. I am a graduate of the University of Tennessee Knoxville with both a Bachelors and Masters Degree. I am certified to teach Elementary Education kindergarten through grade 8. I am currently teaching Transition 1 at Porter Elementary School. It marks my 18th year over all in my teaching career.

Teaching Experience

I have had experience teaching all grade levels K-12. During my first year of teaching, (which was my internship year with the University of Tennessee Knoxville) I spent a semester teaching in a 4th/5th split grade and a semester teaching in a kindergarten class. The next year I taught at the high school level in both special education resource and gifted programs. I began at Central Elementary stepping in as librarian for the 1994 -1995 school year. The next year I was asked to continue in that position. I enjoyed the experience as I had the chance to work with all grade levels from kindergarten through 8th grade. While each grade has its own unique challenges and positive aspects, I found that I enjoyed the primary grade students the most. In 1996, the opportunity to move to a first grade classroom came about. So I moved to first grade and taught there for 12 years. In 2008 I finally made the move to Blount County and began working at Porter Elementary in Transition First Grade. Over the last few years I have had great joy teaching and knowing the young children that I have had the privilege of educating in my class.

Outside the Classroom

While I do spend quite a bit of my time away from as well as at school preparing for class, I do make time for other interests as well. I enjoy reading, playing board games, going to church and hanging out with my church family, watching old movies, surfing the net, acting, attending live theater, going to hockey games (Go Ice Bears!), football (Go Vols!), and building web sites.

I am happily married to my wonderful husband, Chris. He is an engineer for a company in Knoxville. I also have a stepson, Levi who is in college at Pellissippi State. Since meeting Chris I have gotten into a new sport, SCUBA diving. I got certified to dive shortly after we met. I have had a great time since then diving the local quarries, lakes and rivers. When we got married in October 2004, we planned our honeymoon as a diving trip. We went to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It was my first time in Mexico as well as my first diving experience in the ocean. It was incredible. We saw so many different fish, lobster, Moray eels, sting rays and sea lions. We even saw three sharks! On one of our dives, a school of literally thousands of Amber Jacks came by us. While we were watching, amazed at the volume of fish, a huge sea lion came through the school feeding on the fish. It was awesome! We had such a great time. I hope we get to go back again someday.

My Mission

I enjoy teaching because getting students interested in a subject and seeing them enjoy learning is very rewarding. I have faith in my students. I believe in them and I want to help them believe in themselves. I always look for the best in every child and I challenge them to achieve it. I want to be a part of helping them to become successful and productive members of their community and society at large. I keep this goal in mind in everything we do, from studying how to make a complete sentence, to learning to add and subtract, to discussing ways to show kindness to others.

To learn about my teaching philosophy, click on the following link: