Running head: MY JOURNEY TO BECOMING AN EDUCATOR

My Journey to Become a Teacher:

Paige, Marie, Rose

College Of Western Idaho

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Introduction:

My journey to becoming an educator has begun and while it took me a while to figure out this

was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life I am glad that I am doing it now. My journey has

always been a bit interesting, mostly because I was unsure of what I wanted to do. I have always

been considered a “Kid Magnet” because for some reason children always feel that they can

come to talk to me. I love children and have always liked the idea of helping others, and

explaining problems they might have had, but with that, I opted to go another direction that in a

long roundabout way lead me to where I am now on my education journey. In this essay of my

journey, I will be discussing my educational background, my work history, and extracurricular

activities, as well as my professional goals. I will also be discussing an ethical dilemma in

education as well as some considerations for becoming a teacher. Overall my journey may not be

your typical journey, but that’s what makes it mine.

Educational Background:

My education journey began very early in life thanks to my very loving family. My grandma

worked with me every day at her house on the alphabet and reading before I was even old

enough to start school and my parents put me in a preschool right away. After preschool, I

attended Sherman Elementary School in Nampa Idaho from Kindergarten up until fifth grade. I

can even remember every single teacher's name. My fourth and fifth-grade year was by far my

favorite and I was lucky enough to get the same teacher twice because she moved up a grade in

teaching. Her name was Mrs. Menssen she was kind, patient and super funny and is still to this

day by far my favorite teacher, in fact so much so that I have stayed in contact with her from my

first day of her class until now. What made her different than any other teacher was her
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After leaving Sherman I attended school at South Middle School also in Nampa. South was

an amazing experience for me and I loved going to different teachers for different subjects

throughout the day. I can remember my first period of sixth grade in Mr. Bowen’s science class

and walking into his room that was filled with snakes, fish, and a tarantula. As creepy as it was

that was the most fun science class I have ever taken and by far the most informative, I can even

still do the weather cycle dance he taught us. Middle school for me was when I began to discover

extracurricular activities. I had a teacher in 7th grade who noticed I was extremely tall and told

me to try out for volleyball and I did. I was because of her that I learned to love volleyball and I

was proud of myself for making A team both my 7th and 8th-grade years winning Districts both

of those years. I also had a teacher who noticed my interest in dance and knew I danced at a

private studio outside of school. She wanted to start a cheerleading squad. She was able to get

one started and I was lucky enough to try out and be call captain for cheer. Middle school was

much harder than elementary school however the teachers I had encouraged me to try new things

as well as were helpful in every way as far as academics, however, while it had its challenges the

greatest challenges had yet to come.

After attending South I went to Skyview High School also in Nampa from freshman to senior

year. While I never tried out for the volleyball team I continued to play just for fun. I did,

however, continue to cheer my freshman year, and was on the dance team my senior year. I had a

history teacher in high school, Mr. Wang, who was the school's golf coach. He was super funny

and made history class interactive and fun. One day after class he handed me a flyer and said I

should try out for golf, and that’s exactly what I did. I made varsity my Freshman, Sophomore,

and Junior year, and with his help, I found a sport that I loved more than anything and continue

to play. High school was not easy, however, I did get A’s in all my classes except for my senior
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year in which I got an 89 in my college algebra/ trigonometry class. I loved being able to pick

my classes and take classes that interested me. I took tons of art classes including, drawing,

painting, and pottery and had the same teacher for 3 years named Mr. Mackey. He had an energy

for art like no other and loved seeing everything I made. He always had the best suggestions on

how to improve a piece and truly was an amazing teacher. It is teachers like Mrs. Menssen, Mr.

Bowen, Mr. Wang, and Mr. Mackey that have made me want to become an educator, and it was

those experiences like keeping in contact, the crazy weather cycle dance, making a subject fun,

and great energy that contribute the most to my development as an educator.

While looking back it was experiences like these that made me want to become an educator,

education was not my first decision going back to school. After graduating I went back to school

to be a pharmacy technician thinking it sounded like a fun job without having to go to school for

four more years. After completing the coarse and completing all of my intern hours I realized

how unhappy I was. I stuck out the entire time and finished with my certificate and decided to

take a few years off to think about what I wanted to do. I had always loved kids and working

with them so I got a job as a preschool teacher. After a year and a half there I switched to a job as

a Paraprofessional in which I was quickly promoted within a month to an Extended Kindergarten

teacher. It was at this time that I reflected in life remembering all my experiences with teachers

and how I was in love with the job I was doing that realized I want to teach.

So here I am currently in my sixth semester at CWI taking a few classes here and there with 5

classes after this semester to go until my associate's degree. It was looking back at all the great

teachers and experiences that I had as well as the love of leading a class that pushed me to go

back and become a teacher. Working at a school has been the greatest experience while going to

college and I have tons of teachers encouraging me to peruse this degree and are willing to help
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and support me through the entire process. This has shown me a whole other side to how

amazing educators are and I want to be one of them.

Work History Service and/or Extracurricular Activities:

As mentioned earlier I participated in volleyball, cheerleading, golf, and dance, all of which

are team sports. Being on a team it was important to not let the team down for we all worked

together. In volleyball, it was a little easier to miss a practice or game because there was

someone to fill in however that meant more work for the rest of the team. If I were gone dance

and cheer, on the other hand, there was not another girl they could pull and fill in your position,

meaning that if I was gone I would be letting the team down and the formation of the

performance might not look right. Being apart of these extracurricular activities and being part of

a team has overall helped me in my development as a professional educator. First off as a school

we are one big team all working together for one common goal just like in sports. In a classroom,

you are also another team in which the teacher is like a coach and the students are the players

and if the coach is gone it affects the player and there learning. Overall the main thing that these

activities teach us is not just how to do the activity but how to apply the lessons we have learned

from them to the future, such as being a team player. Teamwork is something that will never go

away and is something I will be taking with me on this professional educator Journey.

My educator's journey was one that didn’t quite start right away. Once graduating High

School, I hadn’t decided on what I wanted to do as far as a job. It was a hard decision and while

education was one of my choices, I decided to take a few months to look into options for

degrees. While looking I began my first job at Kohl’s department store in Nampa. I loved this
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job and helping customers find the items they were looking for. At Kohl’s I was responsible for

many things such as clearing out the dressing room, doing freight, cash registers, and I even got

to do visual. Visual was my favorite because I was able to use the artistic side of me and pick out

clothes for the manikins as well as decorate the store with seasonal decorations as well as signs.

After a few short months working there and still searching for programs, I discovered a six-

month Pharmacy Technician Certification Program through CWI. I was interested in the program

and decided to go ahead and the night class so that I could still work at Kohl’s. I completed the

entire Pharmacy program and at the end had to do an internship at a pharmacy. I interned for 4

months at Kroger pharmacy in Fred Meyer as well as continued to work at Kohls. The further I

got into my internship the less interested in the pharmacy I got. I began to get bored counting

pills and hassling with insurance as well as didn’t enjoy getting yelled at by customers when

their insurance didn’t work on something. I never gave up even with not liking being in the

pharmacy and finished the internship, however, once completing it I proceeded to work at Kohl’s

and did not look for a pharmacy job due to not enjoying the job itself. After two years at Kohl’s,

they made a change to my schedule and I no longer was getting 38 hours a week and was cut to

15. This was due to a change company-wide that part-time employees could now not exceed 20

hours. The cut was hard financially and pushed me to search for a new job. In the back of my

head while searching for jobs there was always that love for working with kids and the

consideration of becoming a teacher. Upon searching for jobs I came across a preschool teaching

position that interested me and decided to apply. Two days after completing my application and

submitting it I interviewed and got the job.

Working at the Preschool was an amazing experience. I was responsible for creating lesson

plans, leading Circle Time, and guiding and assisting the students with learning centers. The
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centers were usually about the letter of the week, or dealing with counting, number recognition,

and writing. I loved being in charge of the class and was even happier here than I was at Kohl’s.

It was amazing to see the growth of a child in just a school year and know that because of me

they were achieving these goals. I taught the students at the preschool for a year and a half and

while the job itself was so amazing the owners of the Preschool were not and I began to search

for a new job. I discovered how much I enjoyed working with kids and began applying to both

Caldwell and Vallivue school districts. A week before the beginning of school in 2017 I accepted

a job as a Paraprofessional in the Vallivue School district. I was originally hired as a classroom

para however after just a month was quickly promoted to an extended Kindergarten teacher

leading my own class due to my experience at the preschool creating lesson plans and running a

class. As an Extended Kindergarten teacher, I created lesson plans, collaborated with the actually

Kindergarten teachers, taught lessons directly out of the curriculum and retaught those lessons to

the low kids who attended my class. After working with kids at the preschool and getting to lead

my own class at an actual school this pushed me to go back to school to become a teacher and

really made me find what I truly love.

All of my jobs and extracurricular activities have in some way shape or form helped me on

this educational journey. Kohl’s, even being a retail position, and the Pharmacy has contributed

more than I thought to my development as a professional educator. Both the pharmacy and

Kohl’s taught me how to manage an unhappy customer, which will come in handy when dealing

with an unhappy parent at a school, as well as made me realize how much I want to help people

even if it's not exactly big people. Working at the Preschool as well as having the opportunity to

be an Extended Kindergarten teacher I would say contributed the most to my development. Both

positions taught me the difference I can make in a child’s life as well as provided me with a first-
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hand experience of teaching and the tasks that come with it before deciding that this was the path

I am supposed to be on.

Ethical Reasoning in Education:

Many incidents in schools present ethical dilemmas for educators. Many schools have written

codes of ethics that teachers and parents must follow and in general, these written codes make it

easier to identify these dilemmas. Personally while attending schools ethical dilemmas were not

something I was thinking about or paying enough attention to. Now working at a school they are

things I have to constantly think about and in rare cases, there are a few that I have noticed. One

of the ethical dilemmas I have noticed since starting in a school has to do with parents and

conduct. Conduct is an important part of ethical practices and can consist of things such as

crossing a boundary to an improper relationship. In this particular dilemma, it is one I

experienced in elementary school and being a child would have never thought of but now as an

adult makes sense and is an issue. Many parents come to schools, especially on birthdays, and

what do parents want to do on there child’s birthday in class? Take pictures of coarse, however,

in today's day and age it is quite the ethical dilemma for parents and teachers especially in an

education setting. Many parents don’t know or understand how taking a picture of their child at

school can be causing such a dilemma. There are students in schools who on there files have a

“no media” icon meaning that they can not be in pictures, especially if those pictures could be

possibly shared with some kind of social media site. So, if a parent comes in and is taking

pictures of there child with one of those kids and posts it on their Facebook, Twitter, or other

forms of social media, then that child could be in some kind of harm. I constantly see parents

taking pictures and I understand them wanting to get a picture of their kid, and while a majority

of the parents are respectful of the situation some are not. Last year I had a parent who disagreed
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with me saying she could only take a picture of her child, after explaining the situation she still

wanted a picture of her child with the class and to protect myself I told her that she would need

to speak further with the principle. I had a no media child in my class and while a group picture I

understand to the parent would be amazing to the other child it could cause harm if posted in the

wrong place, and pulling a child out of a picture with everyone included also can hurt the child’s

feelings.

Photos in school are a dilemma and our foot needs to be put down on the solution to the

problem. A Utilitarianism approach for a solution to the dilemma would be that it's in everyone’s

best interests that parents are only allowed to take pictures of their child so that no one is put in

danger. By only allowing pictures of their child it eliminates the chance of endangering another

child as well as still allows the parent to capture some of those memorable moments in their

child’s life. There are obviously parents that will disagree, in which case it is then in the best

interest of the child and the teacher that if the parent does have a problem that the teacher decides

another possible course of action for the parent that will have the greatest effect, such as what I

did to where the parent can further discuss the dilemma with the principle to further avoid any

other form of an ethical dilemma.

From the side of Kant's Categorical Imperative approach for a solution to the dilemma would

be not allowing pictures taken by parents at all in schools. This would be the decision of the

school for it is there duty to keep kids safe and they decide what expectations they would like the

parents of their students to follow. By eliminating pictures all together it would alleviate some of

the worries of teachers on making sure that all of there students, especially those with the media

warning, are safe by allowing a less likely chance of some kind of social media post with a “no

media” child at school. Of course there will be parents who disagree with this as well however,
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it’s the job of a school to keep students safe, and if that means going to this extent to do it they

can and they will. Informing parents is key and if they can understand why a school is doing this

the more respect a school will receive. Post flyers, posters, anything to let parents know about

photos. We don’t think of a photo taken at school to be harmful, however, they can be to some

and it's important to take all necessary precautions for the safety of our students.

Considerations for Choosing Education as a career:

Every teacher devotes his or her life to education for a reason and most of those reasons are as

individual as they are. Reasons to become a teacher are more personal for some, however, almost

all are united by the desire to impact peoples’ lives. I want to be a K-12 teacher because I know

that teachers do more than teach, and their impact goes far and beyond just in the classroom. I

want to be the person a student can come talk to a confidant really, I want to be a mentor and

simply a friend. I want to help students along their path and play a part in shaping the person

they will become. I am a very creative person and becoming a teacher will allow me to be

continuously creative especially in lesson planning to find ways to capture my student's

attention. I also love working with children and it makes me happy, and to me being happy with

what you do is important. Teachers really do make a large impact on students' lives and while all

of these are reasons I want to be a teacher these are also reasons that I SHOULD be a teacher so I

can leave my mark.

Being a teacher requires many skills, however, there are a few skills of mine that would help

enable me to be a teacher. First of all, I am very creative. With me being creative It allows me to

think outside of the box and use resources I have to create amazing lessons and activities as well

as come up with creative ways to even handle discipline in the classroom. Another skill I have is

experience. I have been working with kids for over four years and I love it. I have lead a
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preschool class for two years, as well as am now a paraprofessional. Having taught my own

classes is a big skill to have because It means I have experience doing what teachers do and

know how to use curriculum and create lesson plans. Being a paraprofessional has allowed me to

watch teachers teach and gather ideas from their teaching to apply in my class someday. Lastly, I

would say my enthusiasm. I am very enthusiastic about the things I do, by using my enthusiasm

in class I can pump up students about learning and share my excitement towards a subject that

could make them excited about it as well.

There are also several skills I feel educators, in general, should have that I also possess as

well. Patience, communication and listening, and likability are just a few of them. Patience is one

that while when I was younger I struggled with have now worked on and understand the

importance of. Students tend to test their teachers and others patience so, the more patience I

have the easier it will be to settle myself down in those difficult moments. Communication and

listening is also an important skill I have. I can communicate with others very well and share

ideas, thoughts, and concerns easily. Not only am I good at communicating but good at listening

to what others have to say. Because of my creativeness, I can also come up with creative ways to

communicate with others that would allow me to voice what I need to say but even potentially

for others to be able to communicate back to me as well so I could hear what they have to say.

Lastly, I am very likable. I am a kid magnet as my family says and for some reason they seem to

like me. Being likeable is an important skill I have and allows me to have the ability to have a

relationship with students and make a class more interesting and fun or make a child happy

because I am the person they want to see. This one skill, in particular, can make a difference in a

child’s day.
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While I have many skills for both teaching and education, in general, there are skills I possess

that would be great for other careers. First is my creativity. While yes my creativity is great for

education, I am also a really good artist because of it. With being good at drawing and art I could

be very beneficial to some kind of design company weather it's creating a floor plan, a logo, an

outfit, or anything that needed sketching. Another skill that would be beneficial for another

career is that I have great customer service skills. With this skill, I would do well back in a retail

position or any other form of customer service position simply because I have had the experience

and know-how to work with customers. Overall I feel that I possess many skills however I feel

my strongest skills are the ones that would benefit me and others most in education.

Professional Goals:

If you want to succeed one key to success is setting goals. Without goals, we sometimes lack

focus and direction. One type of goal is a long term goal. A long term goal is something you

want to do further in the future and requires time and planning. Long term goals are something

that you can’t do in a matter of days or weeks, but generally, take a year or longer to achieve. I

have a few long term goals that I have set for myself they include; graduate from College of

Western Idaho with an Associates degree in elementary education, continuing my education at

Western Governor University to receive my bachelors in elementary education, pass the praxis

teaching exam, and lastly become a teacher at Desert Springs Elementary. To achieve all of these

goals I can’t simply say “I want” to achieve them but I have to work hard and take it step by step

to get there. I need to remember that they take time and prioritizing them, they aren’t something I

can just go out and achieve all at once, but require me to choose what is most important at this

moment in time and focus on that goal. Right now I am focusing on the long term goal of getting

my associates and that is my main priority. While being a teacher at Desert Springs is the last
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goal I currently work there and know that my staff members are supporting me on this long term

goal to do what they do. While I know I have all those other goals in my head they are pushed

aside but not forgotten until I complete my first large goal. Long term goals can seem like they

take forever and become overwhelming. While having long term goals are important they can be

difficult without taking smaller steps. These smaller steps are a large part of what leads me to

achieve all of my long term goals. These smaller steps are called short term goals.

Short term goals are something that you want to do in the near future. The near future could

be today, this week, this month or even this year. Short term goals happen more quickly than

long term goals, however, these short term goals have great value in helping you progress

towards the long term goals. Short term goals are like stepping stones on a path to your long term

goal. With each accomplishment of completing a short term goal you step one stone further on a

long term goal path. Short term goals are goals I set quite often because they make the long term

goals not seem so long at all and keep me motivated for the big picture. While I have completed

many short term goals and crossed many stones, there are still many stones that I need to step

across and finish to get me closer to my long term goals. Every semester I have a goal of

completing at least two classes to push me one step closer to my associate's degree. In each

semester I have a goal in each class to finish my work on or before Friday of each week. In each

class, I also set a goal of doing my best on all of my work and passing so that I can set more

goals for the next semester in new classes. Each of these small goals is a stone further on the path

and step closer to my associate's degree. I know that once I complete this path I will create many

more new short term goals on all of my other long term goal paths to come. To me, it’s important

to celebrate my successes each step of the way. It is about the journey as much as it is about the

end goal. By giving myself a pat on the back, a small break, or some kind of reward for all those
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little short term goals that I have completed it reinforces that what I’m doing is exciting and

important and keeps me motivated and focused so I can keep going on my journey. These little

goals go by fast, and soon add up to a major milestone. Without these small goals, it would be a

huge step to get to.

Conclusion:

My journey has been long and has seen a lot of change. The direction I am heading now is

exactly where I want to go and I understand that there is still more to come. I know now that

throughout my education, experiences, and in all my careers that these were what pointed me

towards an education career and I am glad that the did. I am now looking forward to continuing

the rest of this journey into becoming an educator and seeing where it will take me.