Running Head: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

Autobiographical Essay

Kortney Pelkey

Doug Rapley

EDUC 120-001

April 11, 2019

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Introduction

The most common thing that children want to be when they grow up are police officers,

firefighters, astronauts, baseball players, and princesses. I, on the other hand, wanted to be a

teacher. As I grew up, being a teacher was the last thing I wanted to do and changed my mind to

wanting to be a nurse. In my high school, everyone and their dog wanted to be nurse so I decided

to change career paths, again to become an author and philosopher. After some careful research,

becoming a philosopher was just not the career for me, however, teaching started to sound more

and more appealing again.

Educational Background

All of my schooling—kindergarten through my senior year—took place at a small,

private school known as Nampa Christian. In my junior and senior years, I took a few AP classes

—chemistry, economics and government—which helped me get the college credits I needed for

the career that I would like to pursue. Also, it was much cheaper to take the classes in high

school compared to college.

After high school, I took a break from school, applied at an internship and worked in a

internship for two years. The internship was through my church which heavily focused on

leadership skills, community service, and an understanding of the Bible. The internship ended in

May 2018. From there, I decided to go to college so I could become a teacher, as well as start

something new. In the fall of 2018, I attended my first semester at the College of Western Idaho.

The unique study skill I learned from my internships was note taking. The twenty-two

other interns and I would have two classes a day, three days a week. We mainly read through the

Bible then we would write a paper about our reflections on the book(s) we read that week. For

our two finals, we wrote a paper about our favorite book and wrote about what the book was
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saying and what it meant to us. The pastors and teachers sectioned off all the interns into

different service projects that would help the community or the church themselves.

My education has helped me to become an educator by being prepared to teach and

actually be able to help them through their homework. These students have taught me that not all

students learn in the same ways and they are still teaching me how to be patient with them. There

are two very different examples that come to mind. The first example is Carter, whom is an

extremely smart and studious fifth grader that normally asks for help to make sure he is doing his

math homework correctly. As we worked through his math homework together, we both figure

out how he started the problem, where he made a mistake, then finished the problems correctly.

From there, he was able to work on the next problem and finish it correctly.

The second example is a boy named Tanner. Tanner is one of those children that says the

first thing that’s on his mind, normally rude and somewhat disrespectful statements. He also says

comments like, “I’m stupid because I’m bad at school.” Because he believes this about himself,

he just messes around and lashes out instead of just sitting down and finishing his homework.

However, Tanner is one of the most athletic kids I have ever worked with. Knowing this about

him, I try to help him get his homework done quickly and efficiently, that way, he can continue

to play the afternoon games. Somedays, we do not get anything done and I am almost at the end

of my straw with him but it’s the days that we both can sit down and answer the questions

together that always makes the day go by easier.

Work History Service and/or Extracurricular Activities

I have only had three jobs in my life time. However, I have volunteered and helped out at

a multitude of different places like Love Inc., nursing centers, community outreach projects and

have greatly enjoyed most of them. The first job I got was one month after graduation and was
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practically handed to me. It was a daycare and I worked there for two years as an afternoon

teacher working mainly with preschoolers and toddlers. I would help lead the class with other

teachers for different art projects for the children and some fun snacks of holidays or special

events. Towards the end of my time there—and the main reason I left the daycare—I was the

lunch cook and made the children lunch four days a week. When I was not cooking, I would be

working with the children, showing them fun games to play or take them to the gym to run out

some energy. After working as a cook for six months, I became frustrated with my boss because

I no longer worked with the children and that was what I was hired on to do. I talked to my boss

three different times about working with the children again and she actually cut my hours down

more! I could not afford to pay my bills so I had to leave that job.

As I was working at the daycare, I worked with my mother as her Athletic Assistant. I

helped her set up for volleyball and basketball games, run the clock during the games, then help

with the clean up after the game was over. In August of 2018, I began working in the Child

Development Branch of the YMCA. Being at the Y has opened my eyes to different things that I

did not see in the daycare or even in school before. Working with the elementary and middle

schoolers at the Y has definitely helped me figure out that I really do want to be a teacher at a

middle school or high school.

The experiences that have helped me become a better professional educator is

communication with students and their parents. I have had to deal with some pretty tough

circumstances while working with children and even some parents. There would be somedays

that I would have to talk to a parent because their child decided to punch another child in the face

or a child bit another kid through their shirt and caused them to bleed. Some of these

conversations were difficult because some of these parents would not discipline their children or
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they believed that their child would never do such things because they have never done that at

home. However difficult or annoying it can be, it is absolutely necessary because communication

with parents, students and teachers in important.

Working at the Y has helped me because it has allowed me to be more personal and start

a conversation easier. I used to be extremely shy but now I tend to be a little more outgoing and

silly. Now, I know that being silly does not sound like it would help by being a more

professional educator but I would argue to say it does! Being silly helps my children at the Y to

stay more focused and to have fun with what we do for that day’s activities.

Ethical Reasoning in Education

A dilemma from my friends’ personal school history was when she got called to a fight

with another student across the street from the school campus with the faculty/staff knowing

about it. A little bit of a backstory to my friend is that she has been six foot since she has been in

sixth grade and has always been strong.

The story starts with a break up between two girls. My friend, Kenzie, stood up for her

friend in the break up because it was an unhealthy relationship. The ex did not take the break up

well and began to follow her friend around the school—a school the ex was not attending at the

time. Kenzie confronted the ex telling them that if they did not leave her friend alone, she would

“whoop” the ex’s butt. This lead to the ex calling Kenzie out on social media to fight. Another

student from the school reported this post to the faculties office the next morning. Kenzie then

got called into the office, in hope, that she would “spill the beans” about the fight that the

principal had caught wind of that was going down at lunchtime. Kenzie did not tell the principle

anything because she did not want to get the other girls involved in trouble for being in the fight.

All while she was in the office talking to the principal, the fight was in full swing! The sad part
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was the ex, who started the fight and posted on social media, ended up being taken to the hospital

because she started to have a seizure after she was punched in the head.

If I were involved, I would have tried to reason with the three girls using a Utilitarianism

or Ethical Relativism approach on them. While using the Utilitarianism ethic—the moral purpose

to make the world a better place—I would have sat them down and have them think about why

they were getting into the fight and who was it benefitting. Then they would be able to sit down

and process if getting into a fight was for the greater good for everyone involved. They should

have done what was better and more beneficial to all of the students at the school. If they could

have agreed that the purpose of fighting would not have made a better place for the students or

staff involved, then hopefully the fight would have never happened. The good part about using

this ethical approach would be that all the girls would be able to talk things through and no one

would have gotten hurt in the process. The hazardous part would be getting the girls calm

enough to talk things through and not putting their hands on one another.

If they would have used the Ethical Relativism approach—that all concepts of right and

wrong, moral and immoral, are completely dependent upon culture, time, and place—the girls

would have never had the fight in the first place. Both sides knew it was wrong to fight and one

side had to suffer the consequences for fighting. Knowing that they were both wrong for

fighting, they should have torn down their egos and just speak from their hearts and not their

prides. Again, using this ethic would have been good because they would be able to speak

directly with each other without getting the school involved. The unfortunate thing is that none

of these girls follow or agree with this ethic and would rather use their fists to talk instead of

their lips.

Considerations for Choosing Education as a Career

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The reason I should be a teacher is because I really do enjoying working with children

and it is the one of the only thing I know how to do well. I know this is not the best reasoning as

to why I should be a teacher, yet I just have a heart for children and would love to pour into their

lives in hopes that I made a difference in one way or another. I have always worked with

children and even starting babysitting as a middle schooler.

The skills that I possess that could enable me to be a teacher would be that I am young

and I understand how a child’s mind works as well as processes information. I have also worked

in two daycares for the past three years and have learned ways to teach children as well as

learned what not to do when teaching children. Working at a daycare has helped greatly by

retraining my brain to be more creative when it comes to art crafts or physical learning activities.

While working with children, I have learned that not every child is the same and that some

children do have behavioral issues, learning disabilities, or physical limits that you as the teacher

have to change and make more available for those children.

The skills that I possess outside of being a teacher would be the ability to coach sports

and listen to someone’s problem and help them solve it or at least help lead them in the right

direction. A few years ago, I was an assistant coach for a softball team. The head coach wanted

me to show a group of third grade girls how to bat properly, field correctly and be a “puma like”

catcher. The head coach was the mother of one of the girls on the team. This mother had not

played softball for twelve or thirteen years, so she was constantly asking questions on what to do

or what order the batting line up should be in or how I would run an activity for a practice.

The other skills that I have that have nothing to do with teaching or being a teacher is that

I am athletic, caring, passionate, a good listener, reliable and I can get a job done and done well.

There was a time that I worked under my mother whom is the Dean at a high school and she only
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hired me because she trusted me enough to set up, run and tear down a sporting event without

her supervise. She hired me because she knew that if she could not be there to run the sporting

event, I would be and could run it just fine without her help.

Professional Goals

The long term goal I have set for myself would be to graduate college with a Bachelor’s

degree in Secondary Education with Psychology, working for a middle school or high school as a

counselor and moving towards my Master’s degree in Psychology. On the side, I would like to

be a children author and write books for ages infant to third grade. I plan to achieve these goals

by setting checkpoints and due dates for myself.

The short term goal that I have for the next six months would be to finish strong in my

current classes this semester and finish with “C’s” or higher. Four of my six classes this semester

are low B’s and A’s. The other two classes are making my stress level rise yet, the information is

stretching my knowledge in those two classes. This short term goal will help me achieve my long

term goals because if I do not finish strong, I would have to retake the class(es) which would set

me back at least one semester. Putting in greater effort will help me to achieve my future goals.

Conclusion

I am proud to say I am excited to be a teacher based off of everything I had done in the

working field and through my studies in education. Even after all the college note taking, crazy

screaming children, long essay papers, leadership development trainings and working with

complicated parent, here I am today, learning how to be a teacher just like I wanted to be when I

was five.