Master of Arts in Teaching

“Education is not preparation for life;

education is life itself.” -John Dewey

 

I have always described myself as a "jack of all trades" because I love to be involved in numerous activities and organizations and have interests ranging from running to traveling to crafting. For me, the issue has always been choosing just one thing to focus on. Growing up, all I ever wanted was to be a teacher. Part of it was because of the fantastic elementary school teachers I was lucky enough to have, who helped shape me into the woman I am today. Then in high school I became overwhelmed with all the professions there are in the world and how was I supposed to know which one I wanted to be? I felt like I was constantly changing my major, trying to figure it all out.

 

The summer after my freshman year in college, I worked as a camp counselor for the first time. I realized that every job I’ve ever had was child-centered, how much I truly enjoyed witnessing children learn and grow, and how I was obviously kidding myself if I thought there was any profession I would love more than teaching. After two other majors, lots of pros and cons lists, and heartfelt discussions with family friends who are teachers I made the switch to the School of Education.

 

After my first internship experience in an elementary school, where I was excited to come into school every single day, seeing the joy on my students’ faces when a hard math problem finally clicked and feeling the excitement they felt when jumping out of their seats to raise their hands, I realized there was no way I couldn’t spend the rest of my life teaching. My senior semester internship added a whole new meaning to all that I have learned in my education courses. I was able to experience firsthand how to manage a classroom, work with students with learning disabilities, and bring meaning and relevance to my lessons.     

 

Some people become teachers because they want to give future students what they never had but others, like me, hope to encourage and inspire their students the way that their teachers had done for them. My goal as an educator is to make my classroom into a safe, positive student- centered environment that embraces uniqueness, welcomes creativity, nurtures a love of knowledge and adventure, promotes experiential learning, and leads the children on the path toward becoming self-sufficient world citizens. These goals are surely not ones that will be easy by any means, but I will have the opportunity as a teacher to impact the lives of so many children during their formative stage of development and I will rise to the challenge.

 

One of my hopes as a teacher is to impart in my students a love of knowledge and learning. I want them to be curious, eager, and question everything because as John Dewey said “education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” I aspire to help shape students who crave knowledge and are independent thinkers because I have helped provide them not only with a basis to build factual knowledge upon, but conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge as well. I want them to see the real world application that will come from the scientific method, fractions, or writing a letter. I aim to aid my students in becoming the type of people who listen but don’t just take my word for it. I want them to be passionate about seeking further truth by instilling in them a love of reading, communicating, questioning, and always striving for their best.

 

As an educator, my job is to aid in determining the needs of society then teaching my students with a curriculum that is focused on achieving these set goals because what better way to make a change than starting from the ground up, with our nation’s children? They are our vision for the future. The purpose of schooling is to effectively meet society’s needs by training youth in the skills that will prepare them for the world by creating learning experiences that are relevant and mirror “the real world.”

 

It is often joked “those who can’t do, teach” but I find that to be absolutely false. Teachers simply want their students to be even better than they are, just as parents do their children. Schools become for societies an institution of change supported by society and defined by the culture. The whole point is to assume a vision of society better than one that exists, and isn’t that exactly what we aim to do as educators: teach our students in such a way that they will strive for the success of bettering the world that we live in for themselves and for future generations?

 

There is one quote by William Arthur Ward that summarizes everything I have learned about education and teaching thus far: “teaching is more than imparting knowledge, it is inspiring change. Learning is more than absorbing facts, it is acquiring understanding.” As a teacher, I will strive to be the best that I can be by pushing my students to do the same, giving them the opportunities and the tools to get there.

 

I realize now that I needed to experiment with a few majors and feel a bit lost to discover that education is the best way to combine all the things I am most passionate about and teaching is the only thing I can truly picture myself doing every day. I am thankful for such a positive, informative senior internship that has helped reaffirm this for me.