Running head: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

Autobiographical Essay

Anahi Valencia Trelles

The College of Southern Idaho

For EDUC 201 C40A - Foundations of Education

Samra Culum

18 November 2019
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It is quite ironic how in life, the things that we grow up hating, or not appreciating, turn

out to be our biggest blessings despite that we always overlooked the weight of its virtue. In my

case, the unrecognizable blessing that I grew up with was being raised by a mother who is a

teacher. Since the moment I could speak, I remember feeling like people’s expectations of me

were always so high in comparison to others. I remember feeling like other people, who didn’t

personally know me, had already made a decision on the type of person I was without even

saying hello first. For a moment in time this confused me immensely, until slowly I figured it

out. My mother isn’t one of those teachers who goes to work simply to receive a paycheck. She

places significance value and meaning on every single one of her students. She has created

endless amounts of friendships with students whom she will never forget, and who will never

forget her. She is constantly being stopped wherever she goes by those who simply want to

express their gratitude for what she has done for their children. This is when I realized, people

have high expectations of me because they view me as a piece of her. How can I not follow in

the same footsteps of the woman who unwittingly set me up for greatness since day one?

Educational Background

Academic wise, school and I have always gotten along. I started my education at

Jefferson Elementary, but after just one year I transferred to Horizon Elementary. With fear that I

wouldn’t develop my own identity, or get treated differently for being a teacher’s daughter, she

sent me to a different school. After a full year of having very little success at making friends, and

a significant amount of anxiety attacks, I transferred to Horizon Elementary. While socializing

has never been easy for me, I can humbly say that I never struggled academically. As I got older,

I eventually went to Summit Elementary right before I went to Jerome Middle School.
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During these years of attending Jerome Middle School and Jerome High School, I learned

a significant amount about how own individual needs when it comes to learning. I am a very

visual learner, and I also learn very well through reading. I don’t mind sitting through lectures,

but the lecture alone has never been enough for me. I need to see it demonstrated, I need

examples, and if possible, I like to read about it as well. Rubrics have always been good for me

as well because I like to know what exactly the teacher/assignment is requiring of me. I keep

these things in mind when I think about becoming a teacher. My goal is to make the purpose of

an assignment clear so my students are not confused about what the objective is.

I am now currently attending my third semester at the College of Southern Idaho. While

many of my peers made the quick decision to leave home as soon as graduation day ended, I

decided that staying closer to home was better. I have changed my mind about what I want to

study numerous times, and have quickly figured out how normal that is in the world of college. I

have come to terms that while I’ve spent so much time running away from my roots, teaching is

what I want to do with my life. In May I will graduate from CSI with my Associates in

Education, and then I will hopefully be attending ISU in 2020, and continuing my education

career.

Work History

Something I will always be thankful for is the privilege my parents granted me to never

worry about having to work, and instead focus on school and extracurricular activities. While I

have never had an official job, I never found myself free after school. Both my parents were

extremely strict in me completing church duties, and at the time, the church was consistently

requiring us to do acts of service. Three times out of the week (sometimes more), I was working
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in my church’s soup kitchen where we would provide meals for those who could not afford it. I

would set up, serve, and then help clean up as well. We were required to be there at a specific

time, and it taught me the importance of arriving on time.

My junior year of highschool, and through my senior year as well, I joined a club called

Lations in Action. Every Tuesday and Thursday I traveled to Horizon Elementary and tutored

children who were having a hard time learning how to read. I spent time with children didn’t

have the ability to do the simplest of things like sound words out. I worked with students who

had trouble due to language barriers, and I even experienced working with a child who was deaf.

I learned to have patience, consideration, and empathy. I enjoyed watching them advance and

excel, and watching their faces light up as they were finally able to read as little as one sentence.

It was an experience that I genuinely enjoyed.

A job that wasn’t very consistent, but nonetheless appeared in my life randomly, was

babysitting. I have an uncle named Jose Luis, and Jose Luis has four children all around the same

age. This was the only job that I was paid for, and I must say the payment was well deserved. I

spend time cooking for them, cleaning them, reading to them, and keeping them entertained long

enough until their dad returned. I didn’t suspect it then, but babysitting my cousins would later

on play a role in me deciding what grade I wanted to teach. I have humbly and very consciously

decided that secondary education would be a much better fit for me.

Service and Extracurricular Activities

Jerome Middle School was the start of my secondary education, but it is also where I

started my athletic career as well. For my last two years of middle school, 7th and 8th grade, I

was on the Jerome volleyball team. Although I have never been the competitive type, I really
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believe that belonging to this team for two years benefited immensely to my growth as a person.

I traveled to a remarkable amount of schools, met people from different school districts with

whom I still speak to today. Although I was on the volleyball team, school never lost its spot as

my number one priority. Juggling being on an athletic team while also maintaining my grades

allowed me to prepare for struggles that I would continue to face as I got older.

After completing my time at Jerome Middle School, I went on to Jerome High School.

While my first year I made a conscious decision to not join the volleyball team, in order to

concentrate on school more sufficiently, my sophomore and junior year I decided to join the

Jerome Cheerleading Squad. Sophomore year was the year I received my first B, and I remember

that although I cried, I also learned that there is grace found in failure. I continued to cheer, while

also maintaining my GPA. After forcefully having to abandon cheerleading due to injuries and

concussions, my senior year I graduated as a salutatorian with a GPA of 3.8.

I’ve already spoken about the club Lation in Actions that I participated in my junior and

senior year of highschool, but I haven’t elaborated on just how many experiences this club

provided me with. Lations in Action is a club that only exists in Jerome, Idaho and every other

club is located in Utah. The conferences that we attended were always held in Utah, and this

provided us with the opportunity to meet people from an entirely different state. The first

conference I attended, prior to attending I spent a couple weeks preparing to sing the National

Anthem. While it was extremely nerve wrecking, it was an opportunity that I was very honored

to have been given. Both years of the club I was a tutor, but my second year I also became a

choreographer.
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Apart from Latinos in Action, I was also a choreographer/singer for a different club

called Crossing Bridges. Crossing Bridges is a club that my mother started in order to allow the

school to witness and experience various and diverse cultures, because essentially our school was

a multi-ethnic school. Choreographing dances for this club was at times more difficult because I

had to research a lot about the culture before choreographing a performance for it. However, it

taught me so much about diversity, and I enjoyed every second of it.

While both of these clubs kept me occupied outside of school, absolutely nothing

compared to how busy I was during my cheerleading years. Countless sleepless nights were

spent perfecting routines for pep rallies, assemblies, and games. We attended every single

football and basketball game, even those that were away. While coming home at one in the

morning while knowing I had to be up again by six wasn’t always the easiest, I enjoyed cheering

on my peers as they won and as they lost. School spirit became a heavy part of my life, and I

watched how school events not only united the students, but the entire community as well.

Parents, friends, and students filled the bleachers almost every single night, and it was a privilege

to witness how they set aside their own tiring schedules in order to show some love and support.

I learned to work extremely sufficiently during school, because I understood that time outside of

school was almost entirely devoted to cheerleading/sports events. For two years I was able to

keep up with this type of lifestyle, and although my senior year I didn’t experience it, I believe

that everything in life has its appropriate season. I was just thankful I got to experience it for as

long as I did.

Why Teach?
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While most people view teachers as those who are passing knowledge onto others, if you

analyze it closely and carefully, you realize that teachers are constantly and consistently being

taught by their students, too. Being a humble teacher means you understand that you actually

don’t know everything, and you are just there to kindly guide people in the right direction.

Which is why I chose teaching as my career, and specifically an English teacher.

I love meeting and getting to know people through their writing. I love watching how

someone who has so little to say, can actually have so much to write. It teaches me about their

character, their values, their fears, and their perception of the world.

Teaching allows us to grow virtues that were perhaps absent before teaching. When a

student doesn’t understand a concept we have explained over and over again, we learn to have

patience. When a student is being unkind, unbearable, but we find out it is caused by an unsafe

and unloving home environment, we learn to have empathy. We learn to be tolerant and

understanding to everyone’s own journey of learning. We learn about diversity, and how to get

through to people in different ways. Teaching allows you to touch the lives of entire families by

being a helper, a guider, and an educator to other people's children as well as your own.

Goals

My goals are simple, but of high significance to me. My first goal is to evidently graduate

from the College of Southern Idaho with my degree in education. With perseverance and

ambition, I will be achieving this goal in May. My second goal is to graduate with my bachelors

degree at ISU in secondary education, so that I may become a middle school (eventually high

school) English teacher. My overall goal is simply to teach English. In this goal, I know that I

want to teach my students to become good writers, but more importantly I want to teach them to
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use their voice. I want to them to learn, to discover, and to figure out their own personalities,

values, morals, and desires through writing. I want them to realize and uncover how much they

can discover about their identities through their own writing.

Another goal I have once I become an established English teacher, is to also teach classes

like Creative Writing. Creative writing is very different from a normal English class. A creative

writing class allows students to write more freely, and more in depth about things that are

important to them. It allows them to unleash their imagination. While I of course want to teach

regular English, one of my goals is definitely to teach a Creative Writing class as well.

I want to make sure my students have all of the resources they need to become more

skillful writers. I want to provide extra help outside of my classes. I have tutored many young

children (kindergarten through 1st grade) when it comes to reading and writing. I have worked

with children who were very advanced in their skills, and also with students who didn’t know

how to read at all. I really enjoyed taking on this challenge and watching them grow through my

guidance/teaching. I want to provide that same type of help for older students when I finally get

into the profession. I want them to know they can find me outside of classroom for even more

help.

Conclusion

My goal as a teacher is to create a safe learning environemnt that invites my students to

discuss the topics we are learning about in class with confidence. I want them to know their

misunderstandings will always kindly be corrected, and their curiosity about the English subject

is always welcomed. As an educator, my objective is not to confuse my students with difficult

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tests or vague explanations on assignments/projects. I want them to always know clearly what is

being asked/expected of them. I hope to meet all of my student’s educational needs, and provide

the correct type of education for every type of learner.