Why I Have Chosen For My Teaching Career

My decision to be a teacher did not come easily to me. This choice was dependent on a reflection about what I was passionate about and how I could make a difference. I have chosen to become a teacher, as I believe teachers have the ability to provide future generations the stimulation for one of the most significant roles in life; to become a lifelong learner. Many teachers that I have had during my education have had a positive impact on my decision to grow and develop the skills that are fundamental to pursue a successful teaching career. My aim is to be a part of an honorable profession with the optimism that one day I will become an efficacious teacher who can provide future teachers with inspiration, as my teachers have provided for me. Through personal educational experiences and peer-reviewed academic literature, I am able to shape my approach to my pre-service teaching, as it will influence my future practice. As a teacher, there is not just one singular approach to educating students; there is a need for flexibility, diversity, adaptation and reflection.

I believe the future of an individual depends on the quality of their education. To obtain an exceptional education, one should be in school where the environment, the educators, and the peers partake a positive impact on the student’s success. Above all else, teachers play a vital role in a child’s endeavors, and thus should create classrooms where all the students will feel safe, visible, valued, and celebrated (Kohli, & Solórzano, 2012). Though these statements are ideal and are very much associated with the innovation of the children’s bright future, are these the types of assertions that youths have encountered in school? I beg to differ, at least not in my high school.

During my Freshman year of high school, I realized my dream career: a high school English teacher.

I am a hardworking, sport loving, fifteen year old girl who values and respects my parents and their rules. The manner in which my parents were raised has tremendously impacted my life and how they raise me. They support, encourage, and assist me through all of my life decisions, good and bad, and they have put a sense of honesty, and a thorough understanding of right and wrong into my life.

Twenty-five years ago, as I sat at my desk at Stockard Middle School completely engulfed and overwhelmed with a sense of utter panic, I searched for an answer as to how to manage my students whose behavioral needs completely surpassed my knowledge and skill level as a teacher. It only took me two months to realize I was unprepared and unskilled, and if something did not change quickly, my career as a teacher would soon be over. Luckily, I was offered an opportunity to learn from a mentor, who during the next six months would provide me with additional learning sessions on how to support student behavior. This mentor taught me the “what, why, and how” of student behavior and how my skill level as a teacher correlated with the progress of my students. I finally realized how much their achievement was impacted by my ability to support their learning. My mentor’s training would allow me to effectively teach students with an emotional disturbance and facilitate their transition back to the mainstream classroom. For the next seven years, it was truly amazing to see the influence I had as a teacher, but also it made me realize the incredible responsibility I had as a teacher to “get it right”. Without the proper training, I would have been a part of the growing number of teachers who are leaving the classroom because of their lack of support and their feelings of being unprepared.

“When we are too busy to reflect on how we are living our lives; it is almost certain that we are too busy not doing the right things”(Kelly, 2017). As I began to reflect on myself as a teacher, I asked the question of what made me desire the career in the first place. To answer this, I will tell you a story of a young girl who was entranced by her parent’s careers as Nassau BOCES employees. She took in as much information as possible as she watched her mother, a Speech Pathologist, feed a child through a feeding tube, and her father, a Special Education Teacher, create a comfortable environment in his classroom. As one might guess, this girl was me, and my parents are my inspiration to become a teacher. While I lack the ability to speak another language, my patience and hard work will allow me to be successful in my future endeavors as an aspiring educator. Furthermore, my experiences in school have motivated me to implore my future students to think critically. Readings and videos such as Tuning in to teacher-talk by Susi Long, The School to Prison Pipeline by Marilyn Elias, Engaged Pedagogy by Bell Hooks, and The Dangers of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, allow me to constantly reflect on myself as a teacher.

A1. There are couple reasons why I want to be a teacher. To begin with, my mother is a teacher, working in North China Electric Power University, so since young I have learned a lot about universities and I have seen many benefits of being a teacher. For instance an university teacher would have a more flexible schedule as well as summer vacations thus they can spend more time on their topic to do research, also with their children, bringing them to see the world. Furthermore, school is a place that is idealized, without any darkness as in the actual society. This is the place where people can pursue their academics quietly. Lastly, people can realize their value academically

If you told my high school teachers that I graduated college they would have chuckled at the thought and I wouldn't blame them. I did not grow up with the lifelong dream of becoming a physician assistant. Honestly, I did not even know such a position existed.When I was younger I never really thought of any profession or what I wanted to do when I “grew up”. I just knew somehow, some way I wanted to “make it”. To “make it” wasn’t really defined. It was an arbitrary thing that my friends and I said to each to each other that sounded right, after all we all just want to “make it”.

Writing papers is definitely my weakest skill in school. At the beginning of high school, I had already acquired plenty of experience writing and had found my style of writing. High School has given me a chance to further explore different ways to write and allowed me to learn what I do and do not like writing about. This past semester of DE English has felt like the next step in my evolution as a writer.

For the future educator, student teaching is the culmination of the past four or more years of life, all compressed down into two eight-week sections that are meant to give you a starting pace for when you get out into the real world of education. I am happy to say that despite how short these past sixteen weeks have felt as I have journeyed through them, I feel like I have learned more about myself and how to be an educator than I did during all my time in classes at the university. I am well aware that the foundation created at Iowa State is why that I feel like I was able to grow so much because without that foundation I would be wandering aimlessly without any guiding force. One major guiding force for me throughout my time at Iowa

I was rushing through another busy day at work while thinking in the back of my mind what I could write about for this assignment when I came across a Chinese Proverb and I knew that this quote was where I needed to start. This is how it goes… To get through the hardest journey we need take only one step at a time, but we must keep stepping. This quote had an immediate effect on me as soon as I read it. It summed up how I feel about this upcoming quarter and my life in general at this point in time. I am in my final quarter here at Lindenwood University and will have completed all the classes needed to earn my bachelor degree in Human Resource Management at the end of March. This simple, yet powerful little quote seemed to get to me on an emotional level because that is how I have worked my way through school and my life since I decided to continue my education two years ago, by taking one step at a time.

The people in my life I have always looked up to the most have been my teachers. When I was a child, they seemed all-powerful, the givers of the knowledge I didn’t even know I sought. Now, as a teenager, I still hold the opinion that educating the next generation is one of the noblest tasks a person can devote themselves to. Like many children, I went through many “dream career” phases: astronaut first, inspired by the “Magic School Bus” books, then veterinarian, a seemingly natural fit with my love of animals. (That dream ended quickly when I discovered I fainted when my own blood was taken and couldn’t bear to see animals in pain.) However, at a relatively young age, I abandoned those lofty goals for one that genuinely seemed to fit me. I wanted to pursue teaching, specifically English. These days when my relatives ask me about college, I’m ready with an answer and many reasons to back me up. I want to be a teacher because of the influences of those in my own life, a desire to be a leader of others, and my passion for language arts.

Why so you want to be a teacher? Unless ones develops a sound philosophical answer to this proverbial question, an educator will be “like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed” (James 1:6, KJV). By establishing ones core beliefs on the purpose of education, the role of an educator, the nature of the student, and the importance of teaching chemistry one will have the foundation to build a teaching career upon. This philosophy of education will be particularly important to me to encourage, focus and sustain me in my teaching career.

Being from a long line of teachers did nothing to encourage the teaching profession as a career choice of mine. I saw how hard my father, grandmother, and grandfather worked and how little recognition they were given for that work. I witnessed countless hours spent grading student work and leaving meaningful feedback. I saw my adult family members pouring over textbooks like students preparing for the next day’s lessons. I noticed that this was not a job that one is able to clock out of or leave at the office for the next day. I realized that the money while enough to live on, was not enough to do the things I wanted to be able to do in my life. From my seat as a student, I saw how the meaningful feedback that had taken hours to give was often unceremoniously dropped in the trash on the way out of class. Reviews of the lessons that had been meticulously planned were tossed around at lunch alongside phrases like “what was the point of that?”. I also witnessed the things that students put teachers through on a daily basis. These were not things that I wanted for myself.

This paper gives a background on how I developed as a professional and who was a primary mentor in my life. It delves briefly into my past and explains how I came to be in the military, while also explaining how a certain person was able to contribute to my professional growth. This paper examines my life as I progress from high school student to a NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) and a few of the challenges I had to endure.