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Autobiographical Essay: What Does it Take to Become a Teacher?

Autobiographical Essay: What Does it Take to Become a Teacher?

Ellie Blackman

EDUC 120: Foundations of Education

Mr. Douglas Rapley

April 28, 2022

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Autobiographical Essay: What Does it Take to Become a Teacher?
Work History Service and Extracurricular Activities

I was so excited to get my first real job when I was 16. I applied to be a sales associate at

a Shoe Carnival close to my high school and was hired because I had a friend who worked there.

I spent almost a year there learning as much as I could about retail sales. I made

recommendations to customers based on their lifestyle and needs, I operated a point of sales

system for cash and credit transactions, and I stocked inventory once a week. During my senior

year of high school, I decided to take time off work to focus on athletics and my academics. The

summer after graduation, I applied to a local restaurant named Bella Aquila and was hired as a

hostess and server assistant. My responsibilities were to manage guests and table charts, seat 100

to 200 customers a night, and assist the servers with anything they needed extra help with. A

couple months later, I was promoted to food runner. I was now managing the server-side of the

kitchen while organizing orders and taking food to the designated tables. Once I turned 19 – the

legal age to serve alcohol – I was promoted again and began serving. As a server, I made food

and beverage recommendations, performed proper wine service, and managed groups of tables

each night. I loved the fast-paced environment and my coworkers who had a team-like mentality.

Unfortunately, near the end of 2021 the owner of Bella Aquila decided to sell the restaurant.

Since then, I have been serving at Spurwing Country Club where my job duties remain very

similar to those I had previously.

At Shoe Carnival, my main job responsibility was to sell merchandise to customers. This

meant I needed a basic standard of product knowledge and an idea of what the customers were

looking for. I made recommendations and encouraged customers to buy products that fit best

with their lifestyle. There are some similarities between sales and teaching. For one thing, I was

often put on the spot to make an item seem desirable to customers. If I become a teacher, I will
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Autobiographical Essay: What Does it Take to Become a Teacher?
have to do this in the classroom where I will make a lesson plan interesting to the students. This

means I’ll have to learn about my “customer”, or students to determine what motivates them to

learn. I can use this technique to become a better educator down the road.

Once I became a server, I found that my biggest challenge was making quick decisions

on the spot. Many times, I was managing multiple tables at once, and had to quickly decide the

most efficient way to organize my tasks. All at once, I needed to greet a table, provide another

table with more drinks, bring condiments to another, and one table was waiting for their check. I

needed to make quick decisions that would impact myself and my customers. As a teacher there

are many moments throughout the day of managing students where I will be challenged to make

quick decisions. I plan to use the efficiency skills I’ve learned as a server to increase my chances

for success in the classroom.

I was always an active child and have played sports for as long as I can remember. I

started playing volleyball, basketball, and soccer in middle school. After middle school, I

decided to stick to volleyball through high school because I enjoyed the team aspect and there

was never contact from the opposing team. I also played golf in high school which is much more

of an individual sport. I played golf because my dad was the coach, but I began to love it and

continue to play when I can.

Through playing volleyball, I learned a lot about how to work with others as a team.

Although, my greatest takeaway from volleyball was a learned awareness. It wasn’t until I got to

a higher level, that my coach encouraged me to pay attention to the other side of the court while

we had possession of the ball. This was new for me, and I had to train my brain to focus on

something different than what was natural. At the end of the day, it made me a much better

player and I was able to play more offensively to earn my team more points. I see how this
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Autobiographical Essay: What Does it Take to Become a Teacher?
aspect I have learned, will help me through my teaching career. I know that there will be students

who speak up more and in general are more vocal. I will be tempted to only focus on them, but I

must have awareness for all my student’s behavior. I have learned to have an awareness for

everything, and I plan to implement that into a classroom.

Playing golf was a little different as this sport is 90% a mental game. Through golf, I

learned how to have an increased focus and turn my attention towards the positive things. My

coaches told me to tell myself, “aim for the green” rather than to “avoid the pond”. If my focus

was turned towards the pond, nearly all my shots ended up in the pond. If I was focused on

where I wanted the ball to go, often my shots were more accurate. As a teacher, if I want my

students to grasp a single concept, I need to turn my focus to that. I must eliminate distractions

and if I remain focused on the common goal, my students will be more encouraged to do so as

well.

Ethical Reasoning in Education

When I was a sophomore in high school, a close friend of mine opened up to me about

her long battle with depression. She spent quite a bit of time with counselors inside and outside

of school to help her deal with the issue. Unfortunately, news spread fast around my small

school, and it was soon well-known what she was going through. At times this made it much

harder for her as she was isolated and judged by our peers. Although, the good thing was that her

teachers were more willing to give her extra help in her courses. She began to show

improvement. The following year, as her grades were slowly got better, she was spending more

and more time with our English teacher before and after school. She told me this teacher was

giving her good advice and only ever encouraged her to do her best. Midway through the year

during one of her meetings with the teacher, she admitted to her teacher that she was facing
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Autobiographical Essay: What Does it Take to Become a Teacher?
suicidal thoughts once again. Not only did she open up to this teacher, but also asked them not to

say anything to her parents, or other faculty at the school. I didn’t even know.

Following this encounter, this teacher was faced with a tough decision. In The Code of

Ethics for Idaho Professional Educators, Principle IX – Duty to Report says, “failure to comply

with Section 33-512 B, Idaho Code, (suicidal tendencies and duty to warn)”. This clearly means

that it is the educator’s responsibility to report a student who expresses suicidal tendencies. In

this case however, the teacher never told anyone about the student. Luckily, my friend ended up

talking to her parents about it, where she was then encouraged to join therapy once again. This

happened at my private Christian high school where the lines are often blurred. No consequence

ever fell upon this teacher, even though they were responsible through the code of ethics to do

something about it.

I don’t believe that in any case, suicidal thoughts should go unreported. Personally, I

agree with the Code of Ethics that it is an educator’s duty to report these claims. I have been

faced with this decision myself before, and although it can be difficult it is always the right thing

to do. Without reporting this to an adult, a parent, or sometimes the police directly, you could be

risking someone else’s life. I would never want to be responsible for someone else’s death, even

unintentionally.

Considerations for Choosing Education as a Career

Teaching is a rewarding job and there is value in it through the students learning. In my

experience, teaching is something I’ve always wanted to do. Through my K-12 years, I

remember looking up to my teachers in admiration. They always motivated me to do my best,

and I was often inspired by their own passion to teach. I felt drawn to education and have

considered many different jobs within this field. Although, I did have some teachers who told me
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Autobiographical Essay: What Does it Take to Become a Teacher?
not to. They said it was too hard, or that I would hate it, or that it’s not a professional job. For a

while, I unfortunately listened to those awful teachers, and I thought it wasn’t something I should

do. It took me a long time to realize how wrong they were, and how wrong it was for them to tell

me what I wanted to do. I have a passion for teaching, and I feel that I should become a teacher

not to fulfill my own desire, but to care and educate the coming generations.

I think that many of the skills I have learned throughout my experience, all can be applied

to teaching. Teaching takes critical thinking, patience, organization, and leadership. It’s

important to be aware that every student brings something different to the table. It’s normal for a

teacher who deals with many different students, to feel pressure put on them by students, parents,

or faculty. It is not always easy to approach this with a positive attitude. In my experience, I have

dealt with work or situations that were not easy to tackle. However, my personality type enjoys

approaching things head on even when they are difficult. I like to be challenged. Not only do I

enjoy being challenged, but I also enjoy watching others succeed. I am passionate about

education because I think learning is valuable. I have been in teaching situations before, and I

love every minute of it. It takes patience and quick decision-making. In my previous work

experience, I have been challenged to make decisions especially in high stress situations. I love

to learn from my mistakes and advice from mentors.

Although I want to become a teacher one day, I must consider all avenues. Within the

field of teaching, there are a couple different aspects that I believe I would be good at. I’ve

always thought I would do a good job as coach. While it has many similar aspects to teaching,

my passions for sports would help me inspire children to perform their best. I have learned many

things from my own experience with different sports and I would have much to say on

performance within a specific sport. While coaching could be a potential good fit for me, I can
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Autobiographical Essay: What Does it Take to Become a Teacher?
also see myself a good tutor. This kind of education is typically more one-on-one where I feel

that I can dedicate a lot of time to a couple students rather than an entire classroom. Both involve

learning which is something I have a great deal of passion towards.

On the other hand, I have also considered career choices outside of the education field.

For my first two years of college, I wanted to be a physical therapist and was pursuing a

kinesiology degree. I have a good attention to detail and a passion for public health. I enjoy

creating diet or exercise plans that have worked on myself and a couple other close friends. I also

enjoy math and organization and have considered careers in accounting or financials. As much as

I enjoy spending time with people, it would be nice to have a job where I have my own space

and complete most work on my own.

Professional Goals

A long-term goal of mine is that I plan to get my bachelor’s degree in elementary

education. I don’t have a desire to get a masters or doctoral degree mostly because I do not have

interest in those many years of school. I would like to begin teaching in lower-income schools

where I can offer good care and education to children that struggle financially. I care about

building low-income schools up and being an good example to students. In order to achieve my

goal, I plan to attain my associate degree in elementary education at College of Western Idaho,

and later finishing my master’s degree through Arizona State University. I have always wanted

to live in Arizona, and they have a good program to complete my education. Along with my

education, I want to own a house. Owning a house is important to me because I value a good

home environment. I have yet to decide if I want to get my real-estate license before purchasing

a home or if I want to go through a relator. Either way, it’s important that I practice good money-

saving habits now.

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Autobiographical Essay: What Does it Take to Become a Teacher?
To attain my long-term goals, I need to set short-term ones to guide me. For every

semester of college, I plan to achieve a 3.5 GPA. I will do this by staying organized and keeping

up with school tasks/responsibilities. I know with a little hard work that I can easily become a

certified teacher the more consistent I am. To own my own house one day, I am going to need to

be able to make a sizeable down-payment on a house. That means that I need to start saving

money now. I currently have a ROTH account where I put in a portion of my income every

month. Besides that, the rest of my money is divided among bills and whatever else I want to

spend it on. If I start practicing good monetary habits now, I will have more money down the

road. I plan to budget my money though an excel spreadsheet to reduce mindless spending.

Through this, I can greatly benefit myself when purchasing my first home.