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Autobiographical Essay

Daniela Corona

College of Western Idaho

EDUC-120 Foundations of Education

Professor Rapley

19 April 2022
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Educational Background

I started my early education by attending Summer wind Elementary School for

kindergarten before transferring over to Frontier Elementary. I was a second-generation

immigrant and English was not my first language. I struggled tremendously in elementary school

and at times it felt like teachers were not supportive. One specific memory from my time in

elementary school was when my fourth-grade teacher finished grading a science test we took,

she gathered the class together and congratulated everyone because they had all received a one

hundred percent on the test besides one student. She started to talk down to that one student she

never said their name, but everyone was curious about who she was talking about and once we

got our papers back, I realized she was talking about me. This was just one situation out of many

that I encountered in elementary so when I reached middle school I stopped trying in school

because I was made to believe I wasn’t intelligent.

After leaving elementary school I attended Eagle Middle School. For the first semester of

sixth grade, I didn’t try in school I didn’t study for test, nor did I do my homework it wasn’t until

my sixth-grade math teacher had an intervention with me that I realized I had potential and that I

shouldn’t let it go to waste. I went from F’s and D’s to C’s and B’s and by seeing that

improvement really motivated me to do better in school. Middle School went by so quick and

soon I was attending high school. I attended Centennial High School, and I had a successful time

there. I took a handful of college/AP classes, I was an honors student and graduated with a 3.8

GPA. I am proud to see where I am now compared to where I was with my education.

I graduated Centennial High School in June of 2020 and in the fall of 2020, I started my

first semester at The College of Western Idaho, and I am currently in my fourth semester at this

college. In the beginning of my education at college my career path was in Health Science, but
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due to seeing how Covid-19 was being handled I started having doubts in wanting to continue

my education in Health Science, so I took a chance and changed my major from Health Science

to Education.

In high school I took any health classes I could take. Due to taking this career path I

became CPR certified, I also worked alongside our high school’s athletic trainer during school

sports games. I was also recruited to join the schools National Honors Society we participated in

community service.

My education helped contribute to my development as a professional educator because I

participated in many hands-on events at my school such as helping out the athletic trainers and

participating in NHS. While in school I was also a teacher’s assistant as a senior I helped the

teacher by grading papers and helping her organize material for her classes. Instances like these

helped contribute to my development in becoming an educator.

Work History Service and/or Extracurricular Activities

I have only worked at one establishment and that is Walmart. I have been working with

the company since I was in high school. My role at work is to be a toy sales associate, I am the

department manager of the toy department and with having that role it comes with a lot of

responsibilities such as training new associates, taking care of the department, and providing

customer service.

Training new associates at my job helped contribute to my development as an educator

the most because it taught me how to engage with different individuals and showed me how to

teach them the basics of the job. One of the most fulfilling things about training new associates is

when months pass, they would approach me and tell me that I taught them more and have been

the more helpful than the store managers.

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In high school I was a member of the National Honors Society and within the club it was

mandatory to participate in different community service activities. One of these activities that I

had volunteered for was to be a tour guide for the upcoming freshman. I was given a group of ten

freshman, and I had to maintain their attention as I lead them through the school and answered

any question that they had at the time. I remember I was so nervous to lead this group because I

felt like I was not prepared to lead this group of freshmen but as the tour began, I realized that it

wasn’t a big deal. As the tour went on, I became more comfortable talking to the group, I was

able to answer any questions they had and the tour I gave ended up being a success.

Activities such as the school tour contributed to my development into becoming a

professional educator because it taught me ways to handle talking to a group of people. When I

gave the tour, I realized that having a group of people looking at you for guidance brings a

different type of anxiety than just standing in front of a class and giving a presentation on a

assignment. These experiences also taught me different ways to try to communicate with people

and how to gain people’s attention.

Ethical Reasoning in Education

When I was in middle school there was rumors of a social studies teacher being a little bit

to affectionate and touchy with the female students. Some of these rumors that were spreading

through out our grade level was that a girl had a necklace tucked into her shirt and this specific

teacher reached into the student’s shirt to pull out the necklace to look at it. Another instance

would be that he would stop female students in the hallway and bend down to read the words on

their shirt and he would get uncomfortably close. Then the students found a pattern in how the

teacher would make his sitting charts, he would only have female students take up the desks at

the front of the class and the male students would be in the back. If these rumors happen to be
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true, then the actions of this teacher would break the Code of Ethics. If you look at Principle II -

Educator/Student Relationship and section D. Committing any act of harassment as defined by

district policy. The teacher’s case would have to go to the committee due to the inappropriate

behavior and there they would determine what should be done about the situation. Any

inappropriate contact with students is unacceptable and is ethically wrong this behavior creates a

bad learning environment in the classroom therefore I would agree with the Code of Ethics if this

teacher would lose their teaching position.

The behavior previously mentioned is unethical, as an educator it’s your job to create a

positive learning environment and encourages your students and by engaging in that behavior

you put the learning environment in your classroom in danger. Not to mention that the behavior

that is being engaged with is not just morally wrong but also illegal in some situations, an

opposing view to this situation would be that all of these statements are rumors, at my school no

one ever came forward saying something occurred with the teacher it was just rumors and

speculation that swarmed the school. You can make an agreement that the teacher shouldn’t lose

their position as a teacher because there is no evidence and that’s why a case like this should be

looked over by the Professional Standard Committee and they would determine if the Code of

Ethics have been broken.

Considerations for Choosing Education as a Career

Why I should/should not be a teacher has been a question that I had been contemplating

for many weeks. I kept going back and forth seeing if I wanted to change my education from

health to teaching. I had talked to family and friends to see what I should do, and if changing my

career path would be a smart decision. It wasn’t until I spoke to my student advisor and took

multiple career test that it truly showed me that I should pursue a career in teaching. I like
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working with children and I like the idea of running a classroom and forming connections with

the students. There are many situations that scare me when it come to teaching such as these

students depend on you to receive their education or struggling with having the knowledge that a

student in your classroom might come from a struggling household. But I have told myself that

it’s normal to have these fears because they are unknown to me, but as I continue my education

in this career, I will learn how to handle these situations that will come up in this job. The more I

learn about this career the more I want to continue my education into becoming an educator.

I am the oldest sibling in my household by that alone I felt like I obtained a lot of skills

that would allow me to pursue a career in teaching. When both my parents were out working, I

had to be the authority figure for my younger sisters. I am twenty years old, and the youngest

sister is turning seven on the 17th of March, so I have always been a babysitter for them. Due to

that I pick up on many skills that would enable me to become a teacher such as being a good

listener, communicator, and being able to resolve conflict. When you are dealing with children

that are younger, they tend to communicate differently than adults would. Every time my siblings

would have a disagreement, I would have to communicate with them in a way that would avoid

them having a temper tantrum. I learned how to understand them and to listen to them because

these kids are not just kids, they are people too and they have their own feelings.

I skill that I possess that is good to be in the education field is that I am a very empathetic

person. Being empathetic is important in the education field because you will be dealing with

individuals that have their own lives and being understanding and open to that will help you

reach those individuals. This skill is also important for a teacher to possess, but at the same time

being to open and being too in tune with your feelings can cause you harm as a teacher. You

would spread yourself thin trying to take on every student’s problem and being that sensitive can
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hurt your mental health causing you to become stressed. It’s good to be empathic but you also

need to understand as a teacher you have limitations and to not overstep in what you can do.

Before I had started looking into a career in teaching, I had been studying and wanted to

obtain a job in the medical field. I possess some science/medical knowledge that could still be

used in teaching/education job, but this knowledge would have been better suited for a career in

the medical field. But many skills that are needed in the medical field are the same as being an

educator, there are some differences, but they do require similar skill sets. Skills such as

communication and listen are both important in medical field as well as teaching but being able

to recall different disorders or name all the muscles and bones in the body leans more towards

the health side of things than teaching.

Professional Goals

My long-term goals I have in this career path is to continue my education. I wish to

graduate from The College of Western Idaho and to transfer to Boise State University. I want to

obtain a bachelor’s degree and get my teaching license and teach in elementary education. In

order to achieve these goals, I will continue what I have been doing. I will continue to study and

put an emphasis on doing well on my schoolwork.

Within the next six months I want to finish my spring semester and summer semester

with good grades. I also want to go to local schools in my area and provide community service I

want to learn how to help out in a school. These short-term goals help me move to my long-term

goals because focusing on my studies now will continue and help develop good behavior to

obtain good grades, and by providing community service to a school it will help me understand

the innerworkings of a public school and that experience will help me for when I obtain my

teaching license.