Graduation Speech : I Am A Teacher

Every fall, millions of students return to school to learn about math and science, English and history, every weekday until summer finally returns. Year after year, the same fundamental classes return and, time after time, seem to faintly impact the students. Schools have been designed so you learn the same information, slightly more in depth, from kindergarten to senior year. What about topics that would further the student in their future after graduation? Schools emphasize the same core subjects throughout the years, but not the real life obstacles millions of millions of people face. What if schools required classes on survival, job interviewing skills, studying, how to pass the SAT- all classes which would further students in their

I did not need to wait that long for students to answer, the class was responsive when I asked something. In an actual classroom, however, I know this won’t always be the case. Wait time allows students to think and process what is being said and asked. I need to be comfortable in the silence as I wait for students to think. This is something I will keep in mind as I move forward as a teacher candidate and teacher.

I dedicate this to Mr. Kovac and Mrs. Newman, two wonderful school librarian and teacher who helped me understand what’s it truly is to be an American. Overall taught me to never judge a person by who they are, and who they look or sexaulity they have, we are all human beings and created equal. Believed that we can all get along as humans and not animals, they helped me with so much and are very kind people. I will never forget them no matter what and i’m glad that i knew them before i leave my school for good.

It is said that teaching is one the profession that creates all other professions. Everyone has been in contact with a teacher in some way or another. We understand that without teachers we would most likely be nowhere. Especially middle school teachers, who teach us during the time when we are most developing who we are, and what we want to do with ourselves. Have you ever thought about what it’s like, to be the person behind shaping all of tomorrow 's wonderful minds? Hopefully, your questions are answered, as you read on. I feel a thank you should be commissioned to Mr. Dylan Harrington for helping me better understand what it is like to be a middle school teacher through allowing me to interview him and observe his classes.

As for Teacher C, this is her first year teaching as a full-time kindergarten teacher. Prior to being a kindergarten teacher she worked as an instructional support teacher for kindergarten. The primary socioeconomic status of School C is low. It is considered a Title 1 school which means that they reach out to lower socioeconomic families to provide quality education to their children. Most of the families that they work with are single parent families, or divided households with more than one child. Teacher C claimed that most of these parents are incredibly hard working and busy. She said you can see this with the amount of support students are sometimes not able to get at home due to the parents working. Therefore, at School C teachers try their best to provide as much meaningful instruction in school, so that that the families can focus on providing for their children in other ways. Teacher C only utilizes 1-2 hours of technology a day due to the fact that her only access to technology while in school is a computer and projector. These are the only tools that they have available to enrich students’ learning. Through the computer, Teacher C uses power point presentations, short videos, pdf documents, and learning based games. The use of the projector is how she gets everything onto the board and makes it big enough for everyone to see. During the day, Teacher C tries to use these resources at least 2 different times for content such as learning phonics, or

It has been nearly four centuries since the first higher education institution in America, Harvard University, was founded in 1636. Ever since, one of the most critical facets in the ideal of upward mobility, in the United States and around the globe, remains the college degree. However, with the rising costs of obtaining a degree, many students have been challenged with the question of whether attending university and/or obtaining a degree is even worth the financial investment. Former CBS anchor Dan Rather answers it best, “A college degree is the key to realizing the American dream, well worth the financial sacrifice because it is supposed to open the door to a world of opportunity.” So, yes, despite the high and rising costs of obtaining a university degree, it is very much worth the expense as it prepares a more highly skilled workforce for post-collegiate careers, it promotes the betterment and advancement of society, and the value of a degree creates monetary opportunities and benefits later on.

Throughout the previous years of my education, I have explored a variety of English and writing courses where I learned to dissect and explore the various meanings and intentions of authors and poets as well as my peers. Aside from the mandatory conventions that must be mastered in writing to ensure clarity, there are some characteristics that run deeper. These are what dictate whether or not a writer may truly become successful. A common theme that has been reinforced in my experiences is that of respect.

Especially, when the students came back in from their break I did not start right away. I allowed them to talk and goof around when they got in the classroom instead of starting the next activity right away. Another weakness that I had this past week in the field was giving students the appropriate amount of “wait time” before students’ answer. When the students did not answer right away to a question I asked I get really nervous. It makes me believe, for a second, that my students are not understanding the content being taught. According to ericdigests.org, the article “Using Think-Time and Wait-Time Skillfully in the Classroom” by Robert J. Stahl, suggests that giving students a a “wait-time” of at least 3 seconds is a positive skill for teachers in the classroom. Students who are given 3 or seconds of “wait-time” have some of the following positive outcomes; the length and correctness of their responses increase, the number of their “I don’t know” and no answer responses decreases and the number of volunteered, appropriate answers by larger numbers of students greatly increases. As you can see ‘wait-time” is an important and positive skill that should be practiced by teachers, especially

As a senior here at UNI, I am very anxious to start my student teaching experience next fall. I hope to be placed in an elementary classroom because I am an Elementary Education major with minors in Literacy and Educational Technology. I hope to incorporate both literacy and technology into my lessons and prepare my students for the future. I have always wanted to be a teacher because I loved school as a child and even played teacher when I wasn’t in school. I enjoy being around children and love to see the excitement in their eyes when they learn something new. I am creative, caring, and passionate and I believe these characteristics will help me to become the best teacher I can be. I have always told myself that my main goal as a teacher will be to change at least one student’s life for the better and help them see that learning can be fun. I want to show students that school can be enjoyable and teach them learning techniques that will be beneficial in the future. I believe that teachers are extremely important in this world because it helps people enter all different kinds of careers and without teachers, these other careers would probably not exist.

That evening, when Edward returned home from college. He quickly ate his lunch and rushed to work as a part-timer in a Pizza Hut restaurant. He works as a waiter and sometimes he works at the front counter. On that evening, Edward was the only worker who came to work. He cleaned a mountain of dishes, he threw all the leftovers on the tables, and he moped the floor after he swept it all by himself. After finished work, he went home and took some rest. Even though, his friends invited him for a movie that night, he did not joined them. He want to, but he could not. Instead, he did his homework that night.

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”, this is a quote from Confucius that I think many of us college students can relate to very well. College underclassmen are at a very awkward age, we are still too young to decide what we want to do for the rest of our live, yet we are old enough to have to do it. I can surely bet on the fact that some of my peers and even myself are doubtful about our future and the question “Where do you see yourself in ten years?”, is the scariest of all. Indeed, choosing a job and developing a career are what college students will spend two third of their life figuring out. However, to have head start in this process, growing a professional identity is much needed.

As an aspiring elementary educator, my goal is to bridge the student’s knowledge to their curiosity. I will provide the facts that will drive their curiosity to asking questions that are relevant to the past and the future. I do not believe that avoiding inquiry is the most beneficial teaching method for my students because no student is “too young” to understand the events that have shaped our country and our world. There is always a method to teach difficult content in an honest, truthful manner to students. Since I am currently spending my first practicum in a kindergarten classroom, I have been considering and applying methods of teaching history, in regards to Teaching What Really Happened, to the primary levels.

As a child I had various dreams and aspirations ranging from being a soccer player to being a ballet dancer to becoming a hairdresser. With this wide variety of dreams and aspirations there was always one thing that was a constant, I wanted to make people smile. In soccer I could do so by helping my team, in dance I could accomplish this by practicing and sharing the new dances I learned and by becoming a hair dresser I thought I could help people by giving them confidence. In seventh grade I realized that the one career that helps in all these ways is teaching. Teachers support their class like a soccer player supports their team, teachers share new material with others like ballet dancers share their dances and they instill confidence like hairdresser do when they give someone a new haircut. That being said I chose the path to becoming a teacher and have experienced both ups and downs throughout my education.

Becoming a teacher was not something that I thought of doing. It so happen that after receiving my degree in Criminal Justice, I had a change of career choice when my daughter entered Pre-K. This moment took me back to my first time when I started school in New York City and the amazing teachers that I came across took the time to push me to achieving my dreams at a young age. I was influenced by these talented teachers to work hard, never give up and the positivity of their words which have stuck with me through my life journey have helped me to achieved so much that I can look back and give thanks to all the powerful encouragement that I received. I wanted to be a part of every single learning experience that my daughter experience. It

As a new teacher I am fully aware that I will make mistakes, change my mind, copy something wiser from a more experienced teacher and still make more changes. Actually, I plan on it. The same way I want your students to always be evolving and learning, I also hope to do the same. The way that I will assess students may look a little mess for a while, a jumble of notes, tests, conversations and papers. Be glad you don’t live in my desk. But overall, I hope to know my students, to feel them out, to understand how their little minds are working, to figure out where they need help, what they know and how they got there. I want to be a hands-on-teacher with strong conversations, less homework and more learning. Real learning. Deep understanding that they can take with them and use to help them in other areas.