My Experience Of Learning

As we pulled up to the massive elementary school building, I begged my mom to let me stay home from school, just once. As usual, she said no. Realizing my attempt to get out of school was futile, I shouldered my backpack, swung open the door, and trudged over to the front door. I would rather be anywhere else than here. For the majority of my life, I attended public schools. It wasn’t rare for me to fail a test or even a whole class. It was because of these failures that I would get even more demotivated and threw away the idea of working hard or completing quality work altogether.

Everyone has a different stance on learning and how it happens for an individual, which affects people’s learning philosophies and how they are created. Learning philosophies can change as time progresses, depending on how and if society changes and events that may take place to change a person’s perspective. I believe a learning philosophy is created by being exposed to certain life events, as well as the way you were taught to view learning. Since the beginning of this class, my learning philosophy has not changed. I still believe that learning and going to school is vital for today’s upcoming generations because it provides an individual with endless opportunities.

Since I was a young girl, learning was something necessary to do in order to mature into my own self. It's something us as humans do to evolve from our younger selves. From learning to talk, walk ,and read we learn many things throughout our lifetime to be the person we are today. Learning is the key to life. Learning makes us progress. Riding a bicycle was a learning experience that I might never forget it.

Language can be hard to learn and I can not give you any more than my personal experience and the story of how I dealt with my past and present life in the country where I was raised. I am passionate about learning the English language more than any other language because I always thought that English was a language worth learning. I believe that war should stop in Burma and everyone should have the opportunity to learn a language. No one should be left behind.

In my early twenties, I knew that I wanted to pursue a career that would help others recognize their challenges. With social work I am able to empower and liberate people to enhance their well-being, therefore, I feel I can do this in a caring and supportive way. I am continuing my college education in social work so that I can help others succeed in life, and help those in need to overcome obstacles and challenges. My goal is to provide others with the essential tools to be successful in life and become more active members of society. My primary objective is to promote lifelong achievement and happiness by employing the knowledge and insight that I have gained through my personal experience and educational development.

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.

I am teaching at McClure Middle School under the direction of Ms. Michele Crull. I am in a sixth grade social studies classroom where they are learning geography, government/civics, economics and history of five specific world regions. My collaborating teacher has a spectrum of students ranging from special education to on level children. She does not teach any gifted or advanced classes, but has 3 inclusion classes. Some of her students require more attention and guiding through their work, so Mrs. Carter comes into her classroom to aid these students in addition to Ms. Crull. Thus far my experience in the field is getting off to a rocky start, but things are slowly improving.

All throughout the summer of 2016, I had spent my time volunteering at the Chinese Christian Mission kid’s summer camp. After my summer vacation ended, I found myself really appreciating the accompaniment of children and wanting to continue my involvement with them. I seeked out for more opportunities to work with children and discovered an afterschool homework club through a friend's facebook post. After reading up on their website, I was interested in helping elementary school students develop essential math and literacy skills. It was my objective to enhance their self-esteem through improvement in academic skills and ignite a passion for learning in a safe and caring environment. Starting out first as a tutor, then becoming coordinator, I have volunteered with Learning Buddies Network for more than a year now.

Growing up, I never was much into reading or writing. My mother was the writer in the family and I was always drawn more in visual expressions such as drawing and painting. It seemed easier for me to draw a picture of a cow then it was to write a description about one. I would attempt to write, as needed for school, but would usually end up getting lost in my own paragraphs and forgetting how to best finish my thoughts.

My education was not the best that I could have received. I am originally from Pennsylvania, but my parents and I moved to Florida right around the time I was to start kindergarten. The public-school education system in Florida is not the greatest compared to other states, especially not the area of Florida where I have grown up. I attended two different elementary schools, two different middle schools (one private k-12 school and one public middle school). I was fortunate enough to attend one high school for all four years, and there I completed a very academically rigorous program known as the International Baccalaureate program, along with some AP classes. This was the best that was offered to me for my learning style, and so I took advantage of it.

It was very sad to end my time at Adams. I had a really amazing time getting to know the kids and seeing what it was like in a classroom on a daily basis. The students were also sad to see it come to an end. They were use to having me come into their classroom and be another teacher for them. In the last two weeks the students started to do another reading assessment. To do this, they would sit down with the teacher and read out loud to her, pointing at each word as they read. This was to see if they were making the connection of the words that they were saying and the words that they were reading. The students have been taking home reading books over the last month and she was seeing if the students’ reading was improving. She was also evaluating if students needed to continue at the same level that they are currently on, or if they were ready to move up to the next level.

My most memorable moments occurred during my elementary school years because most of the learning was combined with fun school trips. I remember learning about Native Americans and the way they survived in the wild. I was amazed to learn about them and the tools they made as well. The baskets, fishing, and use of acorns for food. We were able to learn about the importance of knowing of those who came before us. Also, about the close knit families they had and traditions. The historically aspect of it was very interesting because they were people that were very different from the culture we knew. The aha moment came by visiting Pioneer Village because I was amazed that we can see and touch a replica of those times. I realized that

Since I came to the Unite State, English has became a most significant thing in my life.However, before I was in China, English wasn’t my good subject at school, it could be a worst subject for me. Most of time, I gave up learning English. I thought it is hard and I will not use it in my life. Now whenever I thinking back I feel ridiculous. Perhaps it is my fate, I have to learn English again for living in America. My experience about learning English is knowledge needs to accumulate. If you any knowledge point that you miss it, you will be difficult to fix it.

Everyone was looking at me. I felt like everyone was judging me because of how I was dressed, because of how I looked, because of how I spoke. I was in my first ever day of school in Kindergarten. A world where everything is new to everyone there. A world where it was especially new to me. Even though I was born and raised as the first child in my family in Kansas, I grew up learning Spanish and very little English words. That is until, I started interacting with more English speakers, such as my teachers and peers. Other students that I encountered with my first years were just adapting to school however for those other students, like me, struggled a little more from learning everything in a whole new culture such as the English Language.

My Adventure to Foushee's Mill began on Saturday November 5th,  2017.  I had three classmates with me, their names were Hope, Joel, and Casey.  We have been told to go to Foushee's Mill by our Focused Inquiry professor, the week before, to take in what we experience. This was a definitely a new experience for me being only a Freshman in college, and changed how I saw my three classmates. This is what experienced personally on this adventure: