Introduction
Everybody has a different story of why they want to teach or what led them to want them to
go into the profession. For me, I did not really see myself wanting to teach until my senior year
is high school. I didn’t even go into the major of teaching until my second year into college.
Until my second year of college I never had really envisioned myself of being a teacher. Going
into college I decided to go into speech pathology and then I did not know if that is what I
wanted and then I observed a special education classroom and I loved it. From that, I looked
more into it and realized I wanted to be a special education teacher instead and changed my
major. I could then view myself having as a special education teacher wanting to help students
and that is how I knew that this is what I wanted to do and that this was my calling.
Everything that was assigned in this class was something that I know will benefit me down
the road as a teacher and I have learned so much through the activities and assignments during
this semester. One of the most memorable assignments though this class for me was the
Teaching Philosophy assignment. The reason this assignment was memorable for me because it
got me thinking about my future classrooms and what my classroom would look like. It also was
important for me to think about and write down on paper what my teaching philosophy is and
why. This really helps me develop my thinking about teaching and my future classroom as I go
on through mu future classes leading up to being a teacher.
Another assignment I thought was valuable to my learning in being a teacher is the Education
Documentary assignment. I watched the documentary American Teacher for this assignment in
which I watched it and then responded with a paper response. This documentary was very
influential for me and lead me to see different point of views of different teachers. The think I
like most about this documentary was how it showed the audience the true reasons and most
rewarding things about teaching but also the hard things about teaching. They explained things
that is unfair about teaching, but they still do it because they want to teach and get actual joy
from the profession of teaching. This documentary showed this different point of views of
aspects of teaching about things that I was never aware of that much before watching the
documentary, but it still makes me want to do teach because I know this is what I am meant to do
in my profession.
Through these different assignments that I completed throughout this semester I was able to
gain some insight on what it means to be a teacher and all the hoops that teachers must go
through daily. I like that I got to see examples of why some teachers became teachers and how
every teacher story is different, but they still got to this place. It is also important to see that most
teachers reason for wanting to teach revolves around the idea that they want to work with kids
and influence them within their schooling experience and that is the main focus not money or
anything else. I also go to see how to effectively run a classroom and experience teaching
strategies in the classroom. It is important to get a taste of what that looks like and how different
teachers handle situations in their classroom and how they choose to set up their classroom and
what their goals look like in the classroom. With all of this information that I learned in this
semester I feel more ready and prepared to work with students then I had before I started this
semester and I enjoyed going through this class and these experiences.
Introduction
