Jennifer Hemenway

EDU 214

Why I Want To Teach

I was born in Seattle, Washington. My family and I moved to Las Vegas about twenty-

three years ago. I am the oldest of three children. I have two younger brothers. One of which has

made me an Aunt to two amazing nephews. They are two years old and three months old. In my

spare time I love spending time with my family and friends, reading and watching crime shows. I

am currently working at a preschool. I had been working in the infant room there for about nine

years but was just recently promoted to office assistant. This has been a nice change but I do

miss my kiddos.

I have wanted to be a teacher since I was in the first grade. I loved my first grade teacher.

I don’t even remember anything specific anymore about my experience that made me decide that

teaching was what I wanted to do. I just remember my teacher being so nice and having so much

fun in her class. We always had the best Holiday parties, and a handful of students got to have

pizza parties with her each semester. She encouraged parents to be involved. My Dad was able to

come and read to the class and my Mom came and helped at the parties. There was this treehouse

like structure in her classroom that I loved playing in. The bottom was like a little playhouse and

the top was a little reading nook. My overall experience in her first grade class made me want to

become a kindergarten or first grade teacher. That never waivered during all of my growing up.

Skipping ahead to high school, I had an English teacher that made English a lot more fun

for me. I was originally in his 6th period class. There was not a lot of learning going on in there.

The class was just rowdy. He went out of his way to get me switched into his first period class,

which was a lot more calm,  so I was able to have the opportunity to learn. He gave us activities

that made us get involved and learn the material in a fun way. Instead of just reading a play
straight from the book, he split us into groups and each group was assigned a different part from

the play to act out. We would still be learning about the play but in a much more fun and

interesting way. English has never been my favorite subject. I was never much into reading until

after graduating high school and I didn’t care for writing papers but having a teacher that went

out of his way to help you and making class a fun learning experience made all the difference.

The opportunity for me to work at a preschool popped up about nine years ago. I had

never thought about Early Childhood Education before. I had wanted to teach Kindergarten or

First grade for as long as I could remember. Even when I started, I wanted to work with Pre-K

but the Infant class was the only open position so I took it. I was surprised at how much I loved

it. I decided then that Early Childhood Education was for me. Even though I won’t be teaching

the grades they taught me, I will always be grateful to my two favorite teachers for showing me

that it’s ok for learning to be a fun experience.