Student Spotlight Brooklyn Slade

I grew up as a dancer and wanted to keep dancing while continuing my education. In Canada, sports and activities at university are very different than the United States. I graduated during the prime of COVID, and in Canada, everything was still online. I wanted in-person learning and a full experience. I auditioned for the WVU Dance Team online because travel restrictions wouldn’t allow me to come to the U.S., and I made the team. I also did a lot of research on WVU’s education program and loved that it was a four-year program where I could get hands-on teaching experience in classrooms. Everything just felt like a perfect fit—between the education program and being able to dance, WVU had everything I was looking for.

I did French immersion my entire life, throughout first grade to my senior year in high school. Parents have the option to put kids in an immersion program, which basically means you do half of your school in English and half of your school in French, because French is the secondary language in Canada. I did a lot of classes in French, like science, history, gym, and art. My high school diploma says I completed immersion, which essentially means that I’m bilingual in French as a second language and can speak and converse fluently. If I go back to Canada and become a teacher, I can get higher pay because of that qualification.

I always assisted dance classes growing up, and they were always with the elementary-aged kids. I always just I found myself bonding with them easily because little kids to me are like sponges – they always want to learn new things, and they’re always trying to absorb information.

In the education program, we’re often asked, ‘Who is a teacher that you remember?’ Every time I get asked that question, it’s always my elementary teachers that have stuck with me, rather than my teachers in high school, because I feel like I had such good connections with them when I was a kid. I learned so much in those early years, and I want to be that example for the future. I always loved teaching dance, and I always loved school. I never dreaded going back to school. I always enjoyed my summers off, but I was always eager to get back to school each year. I want kids to love going to school and know that school is a fun place to be.

The elementary education program feels like a small, close-knit family. Everyone knows each other. You get close to the people you work with, both classmates or professors, which is nice because I know I have people to go to when I’m struggling or have a problem. It’s a very supportive program, and they just want you to succeed and be the best teacher that you can be.

I love how we get to be in classes and learn about what we need to do to become teachers and also learn from mentor teachers. Things are different now than when I was in elementary school, and my experience in Canada is different than students here in West Virginia, so it’s great to be able to see what and how the kids are learning. I feel like by the time I graduate in May that I’ll be ready to get into a classroom because I’ll have had so much experience.

It’s definitely challenging just because with the dance team, we do a lot. We practice three times a week, and then we also have appearances, football games, basketball games, and we compete. But, I’ve been a dancer my whole life, and before COVID hit, I was training 40 hours a week and going to school full-time. So, time management has always been a skill that I’ve gotten good at because I’ve practiced it for so long. I think it all helps me stay balanced – physically and mentally – because I get to move my body and do what I love. It’s challenging, but I wouldn’t want it any other way because I’d rather be busy than bored.

My very first football game stands out. Growing up in Canada, I never even watched the NFL, so I didn’t have a great understanding of the game as an event. On the field for the first time, we were doing a pre-game show with the band, and there was a flyover. The (American) national anthem started to play, and I just started crying hysterically, and that’s not even my national anthem. It was crazy – I’d never experienced anything like that before.

I do want to stay in the United States. I’m on a student visa right now, and after I graduate, I have one year to find a job and then move on to the next visa. I want to stay in the U.S. and dance professionally for an NFL team. I’ve been working toward that—over the summer, I did a lot of NFL dance team training. My coach is very knowledgeable in that area because she has some experience in that area. But because that would be part-time work, I want to either find a teaching job or get my master’s degree in whatever state I end up in., I’m still figuring things out, but I do know that I would like to stay in the U.S.

The best thing is the pride and spirit of being a Mountaineer. When I go back home to Canada, everyone is like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you go to West Virginia University.’ I hold so much pride and joy in being a Mountaineer and it’s something that I’ll cherish forever. West Virginia will always be a part of me.

I never toured the school before I came here—I just came here. But now it’s something that I’ll always hold with me so deeply, forever. It’s something I want to share with my future kids. I want to bring them to WVU one day and say, ‘This is where I went to school.’