How I came to education as a career choice

Throughout our lives, we have innumerable experiences.  Most will be rather mundane, but every so often an event will happen that can challenge our beliefs, dictate the course of our lives, and color the relationships we have for years to come.  Reflecting back on my education from K-12, I believe my worst encounter as a student came during my sophomore year in geometry class.  That experience occurred at a time in my life when, in addition to the normal stresses of being a teenager, my father walked out of my life, leaving me feeling depressed and unsure as to what made him leave.  Was it something wrong with me?  Did I fail him in some way that left me undeserving of his love?  That period in my life planted the seed for my desire to become an educator.  All of the moments from then until now have helped nourish it while my experiences shaped me into someone I believe is worthy and capable of carrying the mantle of an educator. 

My ordeal began when my sophomore geometry teacher, Mrs. Paddock, had given me consistently low marks in my homework assignments even though my answers were most often correct.  When I discussed this with her at the end of one class she told me that there was far too much to go over in the time before the next period, but if I came at the end of the school day she would be happy to explain.  The interaction we had that afternoon was so appalling to me that the memory has haunted me ever since.  

She was working with some other students after school that day so she had me sit at a desk in the corner until she was finished about an hour and a half later.  Once the students had left she proceeded to tell me that I was stupid, slow, and I would never pass her class unless I started showing the proper work on my papers.  The response came seemingly out of nowhere and left me dumbfounded.  I had no idea where this animosity towards me had come from or how this person charged with the responsibility of building up our young people could so unequivocally break one down.  After several more attempts to find some kind of answer as to how I could meet her standard I was told that our conversation was done and asked to leave.

Reeling from our conversation I continued to search within myself for a reason as to why the situation played out in the way it did.  After giving it a lot of thought I had resigned to the fact that if she continued to grade me in this way I would have to repeat the class the following year.  It wasn’t until discussing it with a classmate that I realized I still had a chance to pass the class.  We saw, based on the grading breakdown in the syllabus, that if I didn’t miss a class and my test scores were perfect I could still pass.  From that point on I focused heavily on the course and ensuring I was adequately prepared for the exams.  By the end of the year, when all the points had been tallied up I passed, but barely. 

Although that final grade signaled the end for me I would later find that Mrs. Paddock was not quite finished.  It was through my guidance counselor that I came to know my teacher had petitioned to waive my grade, fail me in the course, and force me to repeat it.  While I am not sure of the exact details, as it happened without my knowledge, I was again taken aback by her perceived desire to hold me down.  I didn’t have much to say for the rest of my conversation with my guidance counselor.  I felt powerless in my situation.  I was the child and she was the adult.  If I were to speak out against my teacher would I be punished?  Was there anything I could say that would save my grade?  To this day I still do not know if the threat to petition my grade was legitimate or even allowable by school rules.  I have had thoughts since then that maybe it was concocted as some kind of a scared straight moment in order adjust whatever flaw she saw in my behavior or work ethic.  Whatever her motivations were, I left the experience with a perfect role model of someone I hoped to never become.

The next year I changed schools.  It was not because of the events that took place in that class,  but rather the fulfillment of my step-fathers dream to give his family a house with a backyard and a dog.  The adjustment was difficult.  We still lived near all of the friends I had grown up with, but the relationships I shared with many of them faded, as close wasn’t close enough.  The silver lining, however, came in the form of an entirely new faculty and with that a fresh start.  

The excitement of that new beginning threatened to be short-lived as I again began receiving poor marks on my homework in yet another mathematics course.  This experience, however, would prove to be significantly different than my last.  My teacher talked to me.  She stated that she had had concerns and suspected me of copying off of a classmate due to the little amount of work I showed in deriving my answers.  But the amount that I participated in class and the grasp that I had shown over the material led her to believe that that was not the case.  I was then given the opportunity to explain myself.  We talked about how I processed the material and that I wasn’t, in fact, skipping steps or copying work but I found much of the work to be simplistic and would perform multiple steps in my head before ever putting pen to paper.  Something in my response had triggered her to think of another student in our class.  A girl who had historically struggled in math and was currently flunking the course.  So she proposed an alternate form of homework to me, I would tutor my classmate for the rest of the year, and as long as she maintained a passing grade I would never have to turn in another homework assignment.  

The entire interaction was a dramatic departure for what I had previously experienced or ever would have expected.  I immediately accepted the offer.  It didn’t take long for my classmate and I find that we were very much on the same wavelength with how we processed and understood the information.  The year went on with her scores steadily improving and I found that in our tutoring sessions I was breaking down my methods more than I ever used to in order to help her understand.  It may have been that being a seasoned educator she knew that the pairing would help us both to grow or maybe a gamble that just happened to pan out.  What I am absolutely certain of is that she showed trust in giving me the opportunity, built my confidence with her words, and gave me a chance to experience first hand that when we strive to elevate others, we all rise.  

Through the years that followed I integrated the ideals that my teachers had helped me to form into the way I interacted with those around me.  While these were just a few of the many things that have shaped me into the person I have become today, the closeness of these events and the intensity of their oppositeness has no doubt served to impact my character far more deeply than either could have on its own.  This was most apparent to me when I was given the privilege of being an instructor at a naval nuclear facility.  I made it a point to show my students trust and compassion which led to many connections, and after the conclusion of their training, relationships that continue to this day.  The feedback I have gotten from these former students has been overwhelmingly positive and in reflecting on the trials and tribulations of their lives that they were willing to share with me because of our connections, I know that helping and educating young people is going to give me a fulfillment I will not find anywhere else and my experiences have prepared me to fill that role.Our first readings covered learning, teaching, and educational psychology as well as the students cognitive, self, social, and moral development.  Three concepts that stuck out to me in the text were the teachers’ sense of self efficacy (p. 5), and the sections in the social context for development: family (p.81); Teachers and child abuse (p. 93).  Through the course of this blog I hope to show you why these areas are ones that I believe to be of the utmost importance in education.