Reflection Of An Individual Education : Education, Values, And Experiences

As we grow up we associate ourselves with different people and environments no matter how old we are or get we still see different people and different environments. The bio ecological theory created by Bronfenbrenner, which explains just that with contexts of development. With the contexts of development there are the biological, immediate, socioeconomic, and cultural contexts. All of these contexts play a role in whether or not your life heads in a good or bad path. In every context there is a different association from people and the environment such as cultural context which can provide the belief in society that education is important.(Boyd, 2015) However, the belief that education is important can be downgraded in the socioeconomic context if a family does not have the ability to send their child to a

I could start off my story by talking about my life with my family and parents. They are the most important thing to me because they have helped me grow and become who I am throughout the years. They gave me the things that I needed to develop as a person and they still gave me everything that I need to become something great in the future. No matter what I choose to do in the future, I know they will always be by my side helping me through both good and bad situations that life has to offer. I have one younger sister who I would give my life to if it came down to it. I wouldn’t be the brother I am today without her. My parents have given me my basic needs like food, clothes, and my health, a place to live, water, and above all love and support. Amid all those needs they have given me, perchance the most important value that me and my family appreciates which is education. We are all told at one point in our life or another, “that we can be whatever we want to be and to set our goals high, and never give up.”

My life decisions so far is based on my journey for best education. It has shaped my career path, my choices and my home. Essentially, I can liken my education, to a metamorphosis process. My belief on education is passed down from my parents, but we all share the same value of education; it is the key to attaining a successful position in our career. So, whenever my education proved unsatisfactory, we gambled our chances and moved schools every two years within Dubai. When we received a chance to move to the U.S., my parents took the chance and moved here during my sophomore year. The move accompanied many challenges like adapting to the new syllabus, foundation contexts of each courses, and fitting in to new environments. However, none of these phased me negatively as I have continued to survive and adapt with my peers, disregarding the disadvantages I had to face along the changes introduced in my life.

‘To what extent is an individual’s education shaped by society?’ this is the question to which I will be exploring in this paper. I want to be looking at all factors of today’s sociality and every individual it affects. I will be looking at society through all aspects of life including social class, disability and gender and seeing if that will make any contributions towards the individual. I hope to come to a conclusion in this essay using all my evidence.

I was homeschooled. Up until age sixteen, the primary place of my obtaining an education was my home. Like most people assume about homeschooled children, my parents were my main teachers, I often studied in my pajamas, and recess was not limited to only thirty minutes a day. When I reached the age of a junior in high school, I enrolled in the local community college where, after two years of hard work and severe lack of sleep, I graduated with my Associate degree. Now, I am a BYU student doing the whole thing over again working toward my Bachelors. Throughout these experiences, my philosophy on education has evolved quite tremendously. Growing up, I always assumed that college was a necessary step for everyone. Most people in my family, including

Remember: everyone in the classroom has a story that leads to misbehavior or defiance. 9 times out of 10, the story behind the misbehavior won’t make you angry. It will break your heart.

The experience of frequent relocations and life changes during my formative years have molded me into a highly determined individual who sees the world from various perspectives and thinks out of the box. Throughout my childhood, there was always a quiet sense of not only excitement about restarting somewhere new, but also anticipation of how things would be different. Which side is the “right” side of the road? Metric system or British system? 110 Volt plug or 220 Volt plug? These thoughts that seem to be miniscule opened my young mind in accepting, and later, finding new ways of doing things. Meanwhile, the anticipation of a new school system that can be surprisingly way more demanding (or not) than what I had been through always motivated me to work hard and do the best I could academically.

It is easy to be frustrated at education. It is easy to think about all that education is lacking. It seems like most of the time, the conversation is spent talking about how there are never enough of the good things that really help people to learn. When I started studying education in a critical lens, even when I was taking a course that was specifically designed to think about the possibilities of education, I felt that a good amount of the time was still spent thinking about the shortcomings. And, in critical thinking, it is a very useful tool to not just accept the systems the way they are! However, I started to get lost in tearing down the status quo. I started to feel like most of my time was spent learning about how education was inequitable and inaccessible, especially in terms of race, class, gender and ability. The anger in the articles I was reading was ringing through loud and clear and I was ready to take up the battle cry because if one is systematically denied education, they are denied economic and social capital in our society, which it is unjust (cite). However, I kept feeling unfulfilled by just feeling this anger. Anger and critical deconstruction of the system of education can catalyze change, but one has to have some idea of what an accessible and equitable system would look like in order to then start the work to get there.

Education is viewed differently for everyone, some think it is the easiest thing to accomplish, others cannot last more than half an hour in a classroom without feeling lost. In my own experience, I bit off more than I could chew when I decided to take AP Language. I went into my junior year thinking I was going to be an amazing student and stay on top of my assignments and once they started stacking my grade started falling. I thought the class wasn’t going to be a challenge for me because I left my sophomore honors class with an A. Boy was I wrong, half of the time the teacher would blow my mind with knowledge then leave me in a “what just happened” mental state. I wasn’t really grasping what the teacher was saying. It was not the teacher’s fault I just didn’t pick up what she was putting down it was like my mind was shutting down. I got to point where I wanted to drop the class. I would be in my room trying to think of ways I could drop the class and still stay on track for my honors diploma. I finally had the guts to go to my counselor to switch classes,but by that time it was too late. My idiotic prideful self didn’t want to go in and get help. until my grade dropped to a low C. Then I had to choose between life and pride, because my mom wouldn’t let me see the light of day if I brought home a C. When I left the counselor's office, I thought all hope was lost there was no way in hell I was going to get an A or B in the class. Until Mrs. Cannaday threw a rainbow into

As I entered my tenth-year teaching, I began to reflect. I began to spend a considerable amount of time thinking about areas where I need to grow as a teacher. I often look on websites like Pinterest, Teachers Pay Teachers, and Twitter in amazement. There are numerous teachers with incredible ideas, who are reaching learners in many unique ways. After perusing sites and daydreaming, I decided I would go back to school to further my education. When I began reading the assignment details for the Instructional Video I quickly remembered this is the exact reason I decided to go back to school. I knew the assignment would be challenging, but rewarding. I am familiar with how to create a PowerPoint, but I have never used any of the narration features. As a teacher YouTube is a valuable resource, but I never fathomed that I would upload my own videos to support my students. The thought of creating a video on a resource I frequently utilize in my classroom was extremely exciting.

All I see is the same color around me. Faces of familiarity pass and I feel safe. This was my mentality for most of my life. I am from a small, agricultural town in California called Santa Maria. My whole life is based on what this town has provided for me growing up. I want to say that it had done more for me, but truthfully, I can’t quite say it did. At my high school, there seemed to be a lack of quality. It only offered 9 AP classes and had a demographics of 97% Hispanic. It was hard to cater to those who wanted to go to college. My group of friends and I were some of the determined few who wanted to leave to a four-year institution. My local community college was referred as ‘high school: part two’. This in my mind sounded so bad and something I didn’t want to be a part of. The road to college was going to be tricky for me, but I would do whatever I could do the give me the best possible chance.

Throughout my four years of high school I received the education from three different schools. The cause of switching schools several times was due to the lack of good education, A good education that can prepare you for college is very hard to hard to find in schools now, which will affect all different types of students throughout their lives. Poor education leaves gaps in students education that are critical to the way that students will continue on into the rest of their high school years and even into their college education. An absence of a good education will affect students simply because they will not have the knowledge needed to preform at a college level. Not only will the students struggle at preforming at a college level, the students will as well struggle in the real world.

All children are unique, and as a teacher, I must learn how to meet my students’ individual, unique needs. While this class taught about the many different exceptional challenges that students may face, it is important to remember that students are unique and should be viewed and evaluated according to their unique and individual needs. Learning about the many different learning challenges that students may face helped to equip me with the knowledge I need to teach my students effectively. Teaching is all about the student and what they need to be successful. Therefore my teaching must be child-centered and directed.

“Education,” is one of many words that in my opinion cannot be accurately defined rather it varies person to person through culture, community, experience, and social background. For me, education through high school and later to be continued in college or at a university was a number one priority in my house growing up. While it was not a direct part of my culture to be successful in school or even in my community, (in fact you will learn it is quite the opposite of my community standards) it was directly a part of my families background and mother’s personal experience that I was destined to be successful in her eyes of the education realm the day I was born.

Growing up I think I always knew my brain was different than most of the students in my class. I have always had a difficult time doing the most basic mathematical problem. While most of the children in my class could solve the simple problem such as five divide by four in their heads in a matter of seconds, for me it would take much longer. I remember a time in the 5th grade we were all in a group and each group had a set of problems that had to be solved. All three members of my group had decided that it would be best if all I did was write what they told me to write so I would not slow them down. “You’re too slow to do this with us” one of them would say every time I would offer to help.