Sara McGuire

EDU 214 - 2001

My Personal Essay

All throughout school, I was never the type of person to gush about wanting to be a

teacher when I grew up. In fact, it was one of the few jobs I would do the opposite. Little me

would always say “I will never be a teacher, why would I want to go to school after I’ve already

been in it for long? I wouldn’t want to deal with other people’s children, that seems silly.” I am

now majoring in elementary education hoping I can become an art teacher, all without any real

backup plan. How did my perspective of being a teacher change so much in so little time, and

will I end up regretting it?

Introducing the first big change in my life my little brother, Landon, was born. I was a

freshman in high school at the time and I would end up hanging out with him a lot; I would bathe

him, play with him, and I was always there to babysit him when my parents were busy. This was

my first experience with taking care of or being around small kids. Sure, I’ve babysat for my

aunt and I had younger siblings before Landon, but after him was the first time I had considered

a career in childcare. Still, I was a freshman so I wasn’t planning for a future at that point, but

childcare was something to consider.

In the same way that having a younger brother to take care of helped define my path for

the future, I got a job as a gymnastics coach at the same place my mom worked. Searching for a

job at 16 with no driver’s license was difficult, so my mom had me fill out an application to her

job and in the same week, they had an employee train me to teach kids gymnastics. Due to my
severe anxiety, working as a teacher was intimidating. I had to be the one in control, I needed to

know everything I was teaching and on top of that, I needed to talk to crowds of anywhere from

5-60 people. After getting used to I realized that I like being a teacher, a lot. Being able to make

the kid’s days, even if it was a subject I wasn’t particularly into I was still enjoying teaching.

After teaching for 3 years, I can say that it’s definitely something I want to continue in

the future. My reasoning for changing my area of teaching is because I’m no gymnast, I’m an

artist. I have a gymnastics room with bars, beams, trampolines, rainbow mats and boxes. If I

could teach in an art room with paint, markers, clay, glue and colored pencils I would be much

more in my element. Another reason I know I want to continue teaching is it’s an opportunity to

pathe my students’ lives. For example, a student of mine at the age of 6 went from being a shy

person to this blossoming, confident little girl who introduces herself with an “and I do

gymnastics” to everyone she meets. Along with this, being able to share a subject I’m truly

passionate about like art to anyone at any age would not only make me happy in my career, but It

could also make any students who come my way feel the same way I do about art.

My VARK scores were:

● Visual 4

● Aural 5

● Read/Write 6

● Kinesthetic 13