Self Growth from 18 to 40: Comparing Your Life to Others Your Age

As a child, I always thought about becoming a teacher. I looked up to many of the teachers that I had and wanted to be just like them. The teachers I most enjoyed seemed to have one thing in common: They told their students that because we live in America, we could be anything we wanted to be. And I believed them. They were so positive!

My 7^th grade Social Studies teacher was very proud of the fact that he graduated from "RIC", and often encouraged me to go there. He wore a large school ring on his hand and that intrigued me. He was relatively young at the time and boasted that Rhode Island Teacher's College was the best place to go. When I was 19, Mr. Henderson stopped by to visit me and my roommate, who had also been a student in his class. He specifically wanted to know why we were not in college yet. I always considered this to be above and beyond his call of duty and was personally affected by his enthusiasm to consider our best interests. That was the beginning of my journey to attend Rhode Island College. It has taken me 14 years to decide on the "perfect" major, however.

Clearly, after high school I got side tracked. I was plagued by the decision of choosing what I wanted to be. I have searched for "the perfect" thing to do. By age 26 I had already attended several schools that had my personal interests at heart. I attended cosmetology school, secretarial school, and finally a community college. There I met several professors who guided me with the notion that if I was so adamant on teaching and could not decide exactly what to teach that I could teach what I know.

By age 30 and many personal hurdles I knew a lot more things about life and have tried to integrate it into making a career decision. At Katharine Gibbs I learned discipline. At CCRI, where I received an AA in social work, I learned how to apply that discipline. That discipline led to a job at a local Head Start agency as a combination preschool teacher and family worker. At Head Start, I learned to apply a variety of skills, and learned by observing other teachers about the vast array of skill that goes into the art of teaching.

As a sideline at Head Start, I liked to stop into the Health Coordinator's office to see what kind of new stuff she had or to just to ask about her career choice. I have always been hungry for information. I have always saved my information, my notes, and my scribed dreams. I planned to use all of this information on my quest for the "perfect" career. Like many aspects of life, the best part of the love of learning is sharing the knowledge. Recently, I chose Health Education as my major.

Sharing life as a preschool teacher and being part of the college community, I have had the opportunity to watch others' teaching. I noticed rather quickly how each child has a different way of interacting with their classroom environment and found this to be fascinating. I was able to recognize that students have different learning styles and have been able to adapt to them as a preschool teacher myself or witness the adaptation of specific strategies by other teachers. Some strategies were unorthodox, while others have been straight from the book. Being able to discuss with parents what their specific expectations are, and together trying to incorporate those expectations into a child's lesson plan is a personal characteristic that helped me as a teacher become effective. Being empathetic and perceptive helps also to create new ways to do things. Observing these methods helps my own study.

Personally, I think that a student best learns with hands on experience in an environment that they feel safe in and connected to. I think that schools should be organized in such a fashion that allows not only creativity for instruction purposes, but creativity in testing methods as well. The notion that not all people are book smart further lends defense to my position, because throughout my life I have made many mistakes that others my age were able to avoid. I would think (bias) "Why are they able to avoid such mistakes while I, a fairly well educated person, couldn't quite seem to grasp a particular concept?" Not until I could grasp a concept and learn from it in my own way, was I able to actually keep it in working memory.

As a parent of three children I recognize the diversity of students who come from different backgrounds, and can understand that students of the same age all have different learning levels. I have had the opportunity to discuss policies regarding grades, instruction, discipline, and course materials from 3 different school districts and have had to learn to adjust to each one accordingly. I have learned through this that my expectations as a parent can be completely different from the expectations of the community members and teachers who teach my children and have been able to meet each concept with some degree of understanding. What I find most interesting in my interaction with each teacher, is that each one brings with them their own philosophy and methods.

The moral and social responsibilities that I expect to encounter are that I should keep a personal interest in each of my students' well being, that I should help facilitate their way of learning and to be sure that they can learn, and that I should follow up on their progress and to take their best interests at heart. I can expect that the personal rewards will far exceed the economic ones, but as a single parent the economic reward will greatly enhance my own children's opportunity to experience a multitude of educational exposures.

The future I plan as an educator is to ultimately become a guidance counselor. I was fortunate enough to have had a wonderful guidance counselor in high school and have always looked up to her. I believe that is the ultimate position in which I can incorporate all that I have learned in life and school thus far. I find that this position most fits into my future career goals, because I want to teach what I know. This is, that for many of us, life after high school is more difficult than we expected. Personal experiences of others and myself, such as poverty or sickness, prove to me that there are many unexpected things that can alter the straightaway path toward lifelong academic learning.

Ten years from now, I expect to be working on a CAGS, because I believe in lifelong learning.