My Experience : My Personal Experience In My Class

My feet hit hard on the cold cement steps as I slightly jogged up to Armstrong hall. I stepped into the old building and saw my classroom right away. No one was in the hall and all I heard was the air conditioner blowing. I entered the room at 20 minutes to six there was only one kid sitting in the back of the room. The room was tiny and plastered white without one pop of color in it. I take a seat in the middle of the desks as they were all facing the front wall that had a huge whiteboard on it. I reached down into my backpack and pulled out a notebook and pencil. As I looked back up more students are starting to fill the room, and the professor walked in. I watched as people walked past me to go sit somewhere else and wondered who it would be that would sit in the empty cold chair next to me. I heard a laptop slammed onto the counter and I looked over at the professor. He had anger written all over his face as he struggled to hook up his laptop. I was expecting him to ask a student if anyone was good with technology and could help him. He did not speak up to ask one of us and he just sat there struggling till he finally gave up.

I walked down the hallways, I was quiet and I kept to myself. I desperately needed something my school seemed to lack- personal space. How bizarre of me to dislike being touched by the skin of another student, who were all practically strangers that would come by in waves, or to get hit by a backpack that was poorly resting on some distraught shoulder. Students were quickly filling the hallways, a mob beginning to tear down the walls, making it difficult to see beyond my own two feet. You see, I've come to the conclusion that no matter how quickly I race out of class at the sound of the bell, I always will get caught in the crowd. It's inevitable. Everyone is always packing themselves into the halls, with no consideration for others, leaving little to no space to get by.

I never truly did have a high school experience, sure I had a dozen or so friends, but my relationships with them lacked depth. We may have seen each other on the weekends and laughed at each other’s jokes, but in the end it was entirely meaningless. We had almost nothing in common besides the fact that we attended the same school. The only reason I had made friends with them in the first place was simply out of necessity, after all, no one wants to be that kid that sits alone at the lunch table. Had we not become friends, each and every one of us would have been that kid.

Today I had attended my first class of the Summer 2017 semester. I enrolled into the course EDUC 252 for multiple reasons. One reason for taking this course was that it is a requirement for the Bachelor of General Studies (BGS), an undergraduate degree program at Simon Fraser University (SFU), and this course fit perfectly into my busy schedule this current semester. Another reason for my enrolment into the course EDUC 252 was my pursuit of becoming a teacher. I believe this course will help me as a prospective educator with providing me with various opportunities to develop myself as a reflective practitioner. I have been interested in becoming a teacher for as long as I can remember. Unlike many other children who often had a list of aspirations when growing up, I was adamant on the fact that I wanted to become a teacher and would always announce “when I grow up, I want to be a teacher.” I believe this is a result of the positive impact that my former teachers had on my educational experiences. These teachers played a significant role in my life, helping me to build and accomplish my educational goals. Some of these teachers, I still keep in contact with. For example, over the last few months, I have been shadowing and volunteering in my former Kindergarten and Grade 6 and 7 teachers’ current classrooms.

It 2 years ago, my Dad handed me the phone. It was Mrs. Brownlee on the line, who my Dad had gone to Cate with, asking me about my day. After a nice 2 minutes of talking she told me wonderful news, I had gotten into Cate. It had been a lifelong goal of mine. I started to ponder about how much fun it would be. The next morning I started to tell my friends and realized that Parker Bowlin had also gotten in. This made me very excited, I would not be going alone.

I hated school and everything that had to do with it, but I always enjoyed making up stories. It was my way, even as a small child, to escape everything. I have always had a very vivid imagination and writing was my way of channeling that. I enjoyed writing about events in my life but would always add a magical twist or have someone there to save the day. On the day, my teacher approached me as I was sitting in class and not paying attention as usual. My notebook was full of all the workings of my imagination.

Day one freshman year, my first thought was that I wasn’t going to make it. I had little faith in my ability to move forward in life. I thought, no I knew I wasn’t going to make it through high school for two reasons: I wasn’t smart enough and I wasn’t ready. In truth I was more than smart enough for the task, but I lacked the confidence. I felt I wasn’t ready for several reasons one being maturity another being anxiety. So throughout my freshman year I struggled to stay afloat because I didn’t believe in myself. It wasn’t until the following year that I started to realize that I was more than smart enough for succeed. My first hint was when I was able (with the help of a teacher) to catch up to my entire algebra class in the matter of a month. Note: I prior to that class I never learnt algebra not even a pre-version of it. So the fact that I managed to catch up to everyone else in the class in the matter of a month was amazing. I then went on to surpass the majority of them when it came to understanding why the formulas worked the way they did. Even with that I still doubted my intelligence, but not just my intelligence I doubted myself as a whole. The year went on and due to having little past experience with reading I was placed in a reading class (several reading classes actually). Although I took a reading class freshman year nothing is really noteworthy. But sophomore year was different, I was placed in a reading class with an older lady as the teacher. She was very

During my years in elementary school, there was time where I was yanked from my other classmates for different types of ridiculous reading comprehension quizzes, passionate passages, and whimsical word recognition test in order to compare my results with those of my age. Those who would pull me out would stick me into a closet sized room and command me to wait for further instructions. To this very day, I can still see the tiny, cramped room with cluttered supply boxes and a dark turquoise, round, semi-circle table standing in the smack center of it. The room would contently smell of sharpened pencil graphite mixed with the stench of newly printed library books and paper cut stings. Although I was never one to read as a child, I have always enjoyed that aged, musty scent, heavily breathing in the intoxicating aroma for my own pleasure. Posters hung from the white, concrete walls with motivational quotes and phrases, such as the phrase “Carpe Diem,” one in which my six-year-old brain couldn’t comprehend at the time. Yet, they were so colorful and eye-catching that I would never actually read the posters themselves, just in awe and amazement. The room was that of a second home to me, a familiar place, once I was done with my tests. However, it was when someone entered that I dreaded ever being there in the first place.

Learning is something that no one can truly escape. Personally I feel like I learn a billion new things each day from my surroundings, people, the media and books. As I have dived into college, I have learned so much from all my teachers and classmates. Lately I have been learning so many great things in my Acting I class that pose as new techniques to better my acting abilities.

Six years old, with my hair carefully braided into two bunches on both sides of my head, looking around at a school I’ve never been to before. It was my first day of school and I had no idea where my classroom was or who my teacher would be. Eventually I ended up where I was supposed to be and the first thing I noticed was a funky peanut shaped table located by a huge window towards the back of the classroom. My teacher's name was Mrs. Jones, a very tall woman with a love for flamingos. Her classroom was full of brightly colored posters with educational information displayed and several flamingoes hidden in plain sight. There were about twenty other children in the classroom, but I was too scared to go up to anyone. I stayed in the corner closest to the door, unable to make the first move, waiting for someone to notice me. Everything started out easy and one by one each student was taken to the peanut table. When it was my turn, I realized that we were being tested. Mrs. Jones kept on saying that my score didn’t matter and all she wanted was for me to do my best. The test contained several reading passages and after I was done I was asked to answer multiple choice questions about what I read. I answered the question the best I could and once I was done it was the next person's turn. At that time, I didn’t realize why we were being tested or what was the point of it. How was I supposed to know that this test would be used to separate our class into different groups of reading

The nerve-wracking feeling of school hit me a month into summer. When I saw the email regarding my class schedule for junior year, AP Chemistry and AP Psychology were listed. Anxiety was stirring within me. Although I had a notion of the challenge I am about to face, I chose to give it a shot. Having the same teacher for both classes, I sat in the same spot for two consecutive periods, feeling clueless. I was walking out of the classroom when my teacher pulled me aside for a word, she gave me a pat on the back, “You’re the only person taking both classes this year, Good luck!” I was not entirely sure if it was an encouragement or a warning. “What have I gotten myself into?”, “What am I doing this for?”, Countless number of questions starts to formulate as I made my way back home.

Growing up I was a very shy person. I was the type of girl who hid her feelings because that's just what I was used too. My parents separated when I was only four years old. It was hard for me because I didn't have my parents together. It made me feel like it was my fault. They would argue about who was going to watch me when they went to work or how they couldn't afford somethings for me. I felt like like I couldn't talk to them about how I felt and that's why in school I would always shut people out when it came to my feelings. I remember teacher trying to talk to me but all I would do is shut them out, teacher after teacher. I knew that coming into Pritzker I was going to have a difficult time and I was going to have no one there to talk to.

High School was the year that i started to open myself new doors and new abilities for my future . When I was in middle school I got influenced by forends to stick to the ¨cool¨ side and little did I know that none of that mattered in high school. When I entered high school I thought I was going to have to walk in with the coolest shoes and clothes and freshman year was the year that took me to realize that what we have now or how we look does not matter of who we want to become. Freshman year I was really naive and I tried to keep my grades high but still got the average. That year I was struggling because I never grew close to any teachers or friends I was really on my own. Sophomore year came by and I started to open my eyes and I knew that I was doing good but the year before I was struggling in math so that was a heads up that i was not going to be the best in math. One year that I messed up in affected me through all my four years. Although summer school was a big help it was not the same as if taking the class for a whole year. Not seeking for help in geometry was one of the regrets i have in highschool. I sometimes think to myself that it would have been an easy road for me if I would have gotten it but what is done is done and i focus on what I could do in the present. So sophomore year I would go after school ro tutoring and i would ask some of my friends for help. Even if I did not get the A that I wanted I was still proud of myself because I managed to pass

When I first enrolled high school I was following the current I didn’t have a plan for college or understand what I was going to do with my life. I had a challenging background when it came to academics; my scores were always “alright” but were never enough for Advance Placement courses. I wanted to create a structured path that I could be proud of. I thought I wasn’t going anywhere in life until I challenged myself academically for a better future.

Just as all our students come with unique experiences and backgrounds, we as teachers all have different experiences and training that prepare us to excel in the classroom. The way I learn, the way I was thought and the experience I had as a student in the classroom greatly influence the way I teach today.