Why I Am An Educator

After reviewing the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards and the experiences of this class, I have been able to see how the standards are used in a real-life school. Each standard goes into detail on how a teacher could incorporate them into their classroom. However, through my experiences I have noticed that some of the standards are not meant for the actual classroom. So, I will be focusing on the first standard; leadership, the third standard; teachers need to know the content they teach, and some standards that I believe should be in the NC Standards. Lastly, I will talk about how my opinion on the NC Standards has changed and how I plan to incorporate them into my future classroom.

When I think about the reasons why I want to teach one reason always comes to mind. That look on the child’s face when they first see you each day. They are so happy to be there. They know that I will always be there for them. I offer them a sincere greeting and a caring environment. We joke, play, and learn together, all while making a unique connection. I love that the students teach me just as much as I will be teaching them. They teach me to live simple and stop worrying so much.

As a student in the Education Department at Saint Mary’s College, I have been assigned a set of eight standards to fulfill before graduation. Having these standards guides all students in becoming the necessary well-rounded teacher candidates needed to go into the field of education and ultimately becoming a successful teacher in the future. Each standard relates to a different area, including having a broad and comprehensive understanding of learning processes, the professional environment, and content. Throughout the last two years, I have had a number of opportunities, both in the field and in my classes at Saint Mary’s, to meet these eight standards.

The Iowa State teaching standards helped me throughout student teaching, and prepared me to be an effective classroom teacher. Through lesson planning, delivery, and reflection I was able to see how the standards were interdependent with one another. A great lesson cannot be created only using one standard, several standards should be used in every lesson I create as a teacher. Below I will explain how the standards better prepared me for the classroom while interrelating them throughout student teaching.

The first standard of the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Professional is, teachers understand student learning and development and respect the diversity of the students they teach. To apply this standard into my practice I plan on being able to observe the students I work with and understand how each student learns. To demonstrate that I am adhering to this standard I will find different ways to reward each student for being them and being strong for pushing through their obstacles.

This was my first semester with Copper Mountain College, however, my career in education started over 10 years ago. I have been fortunate to serve in a variety of teaching roles. These range from cooperative teaching experiences in preschool special education classrooms, one-on-one behavioral tutoring for children with autism, and a supervisory teaching role in a community college lab preschool program. Each of these contexts provided me with the skills and desire to pursue teaching students in higher education. These include most importantly; setting high expectations, engaging in reflective teaching processes, and dedication to student success.

The standards are written by experienced educators. They teach not just what, but also how and why.

As a Case Manager and Educator, I am self-motivated with helping kids, elderly, and people with disabilities from abuse, neglect, and exploitation, who voices are unheard and often are ignored. I have made it a personal mission; By joining DFPS to assure that each person lives in a safe environment but have an opportunity to thrive and have an equal chance to live like others. I feel the proper approach to making sure this happens is by addressing their needs in a holistic manner. Having worked in direct services for twenty plus years as a Case Manager mainly in non-profits organizations and in the has provided me the opportunity live out my dreams by helping people to narrow their barriers to an unhealthy and unsafe environment.

The Kentucky Teacher Standards and the University of Pikeville Standard are guidelines that teachers should use to become efficient teachers. Through my hours observing and as a Teacher Candidate in Clinical 1, I have witnessed these standards in practice. Not only have the teachers that I have observed under participated in these standards, but I as well have tried to follow these guidelines to make my teaching style proficient.

I have chosen to become a teacher because I believe that education is the center of a country’s development process and prosperity. I want to be an educator to play an effective role in my society’s revival. Besides, I have always dreamed to be a teacher; it is a passion, which I truly have since I was young. The strong teaching motivation, which I have is derived from the deep belief that teachers can make a big difference in their students’ lives. In addition, I believe that teaching is a noble profession, which should be taken seriously. I know that being a teacher is never easy; it comes with high responsibilities and obstacles, but I am sure that I have suitable qualifications, which make me eligible to overcome them. Education as a basic concept in my perspective is all about developing knowledge, skills, values, ethics, physical and spiritual aspects,

​Throughout my journey as a student at Winthrop University, I have faced many different experiences that have helped mold me into the educator I am today. My journey as an educator has just merely begun, and at this point, it is extremely important for me to use this time for self-evaluation. My time at Winthrop University has provided me with my largest educational experiences, such as my class time in CRTW, my field placement in EDCO 201, and my time working with Clover High School’s Marching Band. These educational experiences have made an enormous impact on my personal understanding of teaching and learning.

when i was growing up i never thought i would want to become a teacher. I always thought i would be something more exciting like a storm chaser, or a astronaut. a teacher back then to me was nothing special, it was just a boring job dealing with ungrateful children. Then when i entered high school I realized teaching students wasn’t as bad as i thought. I started tutoring kids in both math and history. i loved it when they would begin to understand a problem they were stuck on or they remembered that one date in history so they can pass a test. It was amazing.

The Australian Professional Standards are a set of seven standards that elucidate what the role of a teacher is. The standards also highlight the essential elements of high quality and effective teaching that is essential for improving students’ learning outcomes. The four focus areas that would cater for students’ learning needs include:

My greatest contribution as an instructor has been the time I have spent off the podium. There are several subjects that I may not be familiar with or maybe seen as the tougher subjects or perhaps even boring. The time that is spent preparing outside of the classroom is extremely important. As an instructor first and foremost you have to spend countless hours researching a subject, analyze it, and anticipate questions. It is not a comfortable to be in front of students and not fully knowing the subject. Not only does the material have to make sense to you, you then have to take that material and think about how to explain it so that every different Soldier from every different background can make sense of it. Practicing teaching methods using different comparisons, developing training aids all takes a lot of time outside of the duty hours to deliver the best level of instruction possible. Then there is the time spent improving on the lesson plan. The lesson plans we receive are often times missing information, they order they are in doesn’t make sense and sometimes they are completely blank a give use nothing to go off of. That means dedicating the hours outside of the class room to improve or even completely build that lesson plan. Time must be spent to ensure that every piece of information the students need is included. This is not always possible we could easily spend an entire week breaking down the components of an automatic transmission and go into

Before teaching this semester, I had previously taught 6th grade. Teaching 6th graders is extremely different than teaching college students. For example, teaching 6th graders requires more classroom management and more extensive classroom procedures. Therefore, before teaching, I thought that teaching was less about content of the course and more about teaching life lessons. For example, when teaching middle school math, of course the content is greatly important, but there are many life lessons integrated into daily lessons. While teaching college certainly includes life lessons, the content has a heavier weight than my previous experience as a classroom teacher. College classrooms allow the teacher to focus on the content more than behavior. Additionally, as a 6th grade teacher, I did not have much flexibility with the content. However, teaching in the college classroom gave me the opportunity to be more flexible with the course content. Therefore, teaching college students has taught me that teaching involves helping students appreciate course content while providing opportunities to make the content to their future careers and life.