What Life Experiences Prepared Me to Be a Teacher?
In reflecting on my life experiences and pondering how they have prepared me to become a teacher, it is evident that my failures as well as my accomplishments play a great part in my learning experiences. My thought processes have not only matured, but have taught me to be thankful for my successes while acknowledging my failures. By recognizing my failures I have been able to step away from feelings of embarrassment and look at these experiences with deep gratitude, discovering the value in what they have taught me.
With the support of a wonderful husband I have raised two beautiful daughters. I have participated in teaching young children within my church organization, owned and operated my own daycare service for seven years enabling me to remain with my two children while they were little, and managed a local business for several years. While these experiences all play a part in making me who I am, contributing to the skills that will enable me to become a better person, my earliest experience in preparing to become a teacher came when I was in the second grade. I was overly confident that I could be a better teacher than Mrs. Davis and I openly expressed this opinion to her. She handled my opinion with much grace, exhibiting no sign of anger or hurt feelings, and with a twinkle in her eyes said she would like to give me the opportunity to prove my opinion right. I would become the teacher the following day. She advised me I would take charge of the classroom and suggested I take the time to prepare materials to teach my fellow peers. I quickly realized that what she made look so effortless was simply not the case. At that time, I believed I had failed miserably. Now, looking back through more adult eyes, I realize that Mrs. Davis provided my first life experience along with fashioning my dream to teach. She sent me on a wonderful journey of realization to discover who I was and what I dreamed of becoming. My life has taken many various and winding roads before reaching this current path of becoming a teacher. I admit it is a bit later than I had planned, but the many diverse life experiences I have logged along the way contribute to making me who I am and only enhance and embolden what I have to offer the future young students I will teach.
Education is not only a matter of obtaining learned book smarts, but also acquiring character building skills such as, accountability, honesty, integrity, and a strong ability for problem solving. I stand by these principals faithfully and will strive to model them for my students through example and actions. My goal is to allow them the opportunity to grow and learn from their own experience and personal life journeys. William Hodding Carter, Jr. wrote, “There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots; the other, wings”. My belief is that life has prepared me to teach. My dream is that the young people I am given the opportunity to teach agree, finding their own wings and reaching their full potential.
My Family
