Connor Morrison: student teacher extraordinaire

Connor Morrison’s passion is elementary education, and Utah State University has an exceptional elementary ed program. 

“I didn’t want to do something just for myself,” said Morrison, standing in the first grade classroom where he student teaches. 

Morrison is from Tooele, a city about 30 minutes from Salt Lake City. He originally thought about majoring in vocal performance and dentistry because of the good pay. But in his senior year of high school, he decided to pursue a different path. 

“I went through a transitional or transformational period in my senior year of high school and decided, ‘Okay, I’m going to be an elementary school teacher,’” Morrison said. “So it’ll be all about the kids. And I can use my vocal performance background and integrate the arts into the curriculum because I love the arts and I love kids.” 

From his second semester at USU up until this spring, Morrison was involved in USU’s community as an undergraduate teaching fellow in a Foundations of Education class for Dr. Emma Mecham. 

“In the Foundations of Education class, we talk about everything from how schools are funded to Plato and his philosophy on education. One thing that made that class fulfilling to be a part of is for a few days of the class, we just focused on disparities in education,” Morrison said. 

Being a UTF granted Morrison many more opportunities for success at USU. 

“Dr. Mecham had me involved in ongoing research projects and had me lecture about gender and sexuality in education to pre-service teachers at the conference that she puts together every year,” Morrison said. “Being a UTF here at USU has been the gift that just keeps on giving because it is such gratifying work.” 

USU’s elementary education program is nationally ranked, which is why Morrison chose to attend USU. 

“The nature of the program at USU is they put you into classrooms right away. If you’re an elementary ed major, they put you into classrooms to first observe, then maybe the next semester you get more responsibilities and commitments as the program progresses,” Morrison said. “I would just get placed into different schools throughout Cache Valley. There are so many opportunities right here in the valley so you don’t have to travel or anything.”  

For his last day as a student teacher at Edith Bowen Laboratory School, he coordinated the first-grade production of “My Father’s Dragon,” a play written purely by the performing first graders and based on the book by the same name. The students didn’t even know how to read or write at the beginning of the year and by the end, they had all written and performed a play.  

“This unit became my pet project. And from the beginning, I was like ‘This is not going to just be the read-aloud part of the day.’ Everything is going to be integrated within it,” Morrison said. “We made a 3D map of the story as we read the book and rehearsed the play. They learned how to read maps for the first time and learn north, east, south and west. We integrated phonics instruction from the book because the little mouse character always mixes up the sounds. I spearheaded this novel study — every content curriculum strand was integrated within it and the ultimate light at the end of the tunnel was this production of ‘My Father’s Dragon.’” 

Morrison is leaving behind a legacy of curriculum integration as he moves on to his new second grade teaching job at DaVinci Academy of Science and the Arts, a public charter school in Ogden. 

Photo by Katie Henderson