Miss Popino is a dance teacher at Iselin Middle School (IMS). She teaches six classes to the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders throughout the day with each class being an hour long. She pursued her teaching career just four years ago and already has a great reputation In Iselin Middle.
At just 4 years old Miss Popino started dancing and since then she’s been great at it. She wanted to start teaching to open more opportunities for kids to start dancing. She’s always had a passion for dancing and wanted to pursue a leading position for kids who never got a chance to experience dance classes to get one.
Popino incorporates some dance warmups to get her students ready. Some of those warmups are included for each grade. For example, her 6th-grade students dance to the song “Waka Waka”, step jump for 7th graders, and her 8th graders chase. Popino uses these warmups to have the kids wake up and get ready to dance.
Popino had thoughts of quitting dance at points in her life.
“In high school, I didn’t want to dance anymore and felt like I wasn’t committing to the sport,” she said.
Popino was always facing temptations to quit during her high school years because dance was her life, and she had no time for more fun activities. Now, she is very happy with the choices she made to stick with the sport and is a magnificent teacher.
Popino said one common mistake kids in her dance class make is not fully understanding the class. For example, some kids think that since they’re not in an actual classroom but just on a stage, they get a sense of freedom and can do whatever they want. Some examples are kids cursing, fighting, and not paying attention.
One challenge Popino faced on the road to her teaching career was as soon as she was about to become a teacher Covid-19 hit and everyone was quarantined. This made her start teaching a whole year after she was originally supposed to. This bummed her out a lot because all of the work Popino had put in and the one goal she was waiting to achieve had been postponed.
Popino hopes to inspire many others to take on a leadership role such as hers. Many kids might take an interest in her class and some won’t but the main purpose of her teaching is for kids to have fun and be experienced in new jobs and activities.
