Running Head: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

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Autobiographical Essay Kathy Campbell Professor K. Jensen EDUC 290-001 Education Exit Seminar Spring 2014

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY Autobiographical Essay

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Awww Do we have to play school again?! This was a common quote I heard from my friends and siblings when I was growing up in elementary school. School was my favorite game to play and I, of course, was always the teacher. I adored everything about school, right down to the school supply aisle being my favorite stop at the local store. I missed many hours of recess by choice to instead volunteer in the younger grades during my elementary school years. As I grew older, the pull was stronger and stronger to eventually become a teacher one day. The intrinsic rewards are what intrigued me about teaching. Witnessing that light bulb moment when a child grasps a difficult concept is such a reward to me. Throughout many years those moments have kept me yearning to eventually become a highly qualified, certificated teacher some day. Educational Background While growing up, my education experience was provided by a varied array of different schools. I spent time in small private schools, midsize public schools, a large middle school and several different high schools over the years. My experience in those different schools gave me a very diverse education, one that helped me see the world differently through the various cultures that each school served. My first eight years of school was predominantly spent in large public schools in southern California, although I did spend two years in a small private elementary school. The area I lived in had a high population of students from Mexico, Laos and Cambodia, so the schools I attended practiced multicultural education. We would learn about those countries and have assemblies throughout the year demonstrating things that we learned about the cultures. My education taught me about the unique aspects of different cultures and taught me to be a more

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY caring and tolerant person.

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My high school experience began at Arlington High School, which was another very diverse public school with approximately 3,500 students. It was the type of school where teachers and administrators displayed the mentality of if you don't bother me, I won't bother you; because of that reason and the types of behaviors that were common there, my parents decided to enroll me in a smaller private school for my sophomore year. The private school was a polar opposite atmosphere than my previous high school, but I appreciated the fact that my teachers seemed to genuinely care about the students and that they had set rules and consequences. The middle of my sophomore year I experienced a life-changing event, my parents moved our family from a mid-size city in Southern California to the small rural town of Jerome, Idaho. Needless to say, I was the typical teenager and wasn't happy about the move, having to start a new school and leave my friends. Jerome High School is where I finished out my high school education. It was a small rural school with a predominantly Caucasian student population. Previously coming from a cultural melting pot, I was surprised at the lack of tolerance towards people of other races. It was a bit like stepping back in time twenty years. Eventually, I got used to things and made friends with the other students. I graduated from Jerome High School in 1995 with a College Prep Diploma. Immediately after graduating high school, I began attending college at the College of Southern Idaho located in Twin Falls. I spent the summer and fall semesters there taking my core classes with hopes of getting my degree to eventually become an elementary school teacher. I only attended CSI for two semesters due to the fact that my husbands employer relocated us out

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of the area. After that, life happened, I had children and my priorities changed. I wasnt sure if I would ever be brave enough to return to college but in the summer of 2012, after a long hiatus, I made the decision to go back to college to finish out that degree I had started so many years ago. Work History Some of my earliest work I performed had to have been babysitting. Growing up as the oldest child in my family and on my neighborhood street, I had a lot of experience babysitting during my teenage years. I began my first real job when I turned 16; I worked as a box girl at the local grocery store in the town where I lived. I worked there for a year until I was offered a waitressing job at the Chinese restaurant that was located next door to the grocery store. Waiting tables was a fast pace job and really taught me how to multitask. I worked as a restaurant server until I was married and my new husbands job relocated us to northern Idaho Shortly after moving to northern Idaho, I was offered a job working at US Bank. I performed a variety of tasks from cashing checks and making deposits, to making new customer sales and manning a busy drive-thru by myself. Working the drive-thru kept me on my toes at all times because a good portion of my day was spent helping multiple customers at the same time. I was employed at US Bank until the birth of my first child when I made the choice to stay home to raise him during his infant and toddler years. When my son was 18 months old, I took my first official job working in a school. I worked in a preschool classroom, and I was also a substitute teacher at Lighthouse Christian School in Kimberly, Idaho. Lighthouse was a great first time school experience that exposed me to students from 2 years old to 12 years old. I worked there for two school years until my family relocated to Nampa during the summer of 2001.

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In 2002, I began my employment with Vallivue School District. My first position was a temporary Educational Assistant at East Canyon Elementary. The following year, I took a more permanent position at Vallivue High School as an EA for the head teacher of the special education department. The classroom teachers demanding schedule, due to IEP meetings and collaboration meetings, often left me performing the duties of both an Educational Assistant and a high school Language Arts substitute teacher. This job gave me an opportunity to experience working with both high functioning IEP students and students diagnosed with severe and profound disabilities. I continued working at Vallivue High until the birth of my daughter, when I again made the decision to stay home for a few years to raise her. In 2007, I made the return to Vallivue School District when my daughter was almost three. For four years I worked as a Special Education EA at East Canyon Elementary, mainly working with children who were autistic or children deemed to have an emotional disturbance. Throughout the school day, I tracked students who I was charged with, as well as accompanied them in ttheir general education classroom(s). During the last two years I was there, I also provided small group reading and math instruction for several other IEP students in the school. While working at East Canyon, I had the constant opportunity to observe many different teachers and their various styles of instruction, which I feel helped me to become a better EA. Vallivue also provided me the opportunity to be included in the district in-service training sessions. The trainings focused on phonemic awareness, the Read Naturally program, Teaching with Love and Logic, Open Court Reading, Imagine It Reading and the special education program STARS, which is a curriculum for autistic students. In 2011, I took on a position at Legacy Charter School in Nampa. Working there was quite a bit different than my other previous schools, but I liked that it gave me an opportunity to

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witness a completely different school environment and teaching style. Over the years at Legacy, I spent time working in the first, third, fourth and seventh/eighth grade classrooms. It is safe to say my experience working in schools has been varied throughout the past 13 years. I have spent time working in public schools, private schools, and charter schools in grades from pre-school to high school. Each of these experiences has given me the opportunity to witness an array of classroom cultures and teaching styles, and I hope that the experience will help me to become a well-rounded teacher once I have my certification. Volunteer and/or Extracurricular Activities During my high school years, I participated in extra-curricular activities by running for my high school cross-country team and also by being a member of the advanced drama team. In addition to my school activities, I volunteered at a local church I attended. At the church, I helped as a Sunday school helper, and I also helped as an assistant teacher for the Vacation Bible School program during the summer months. Church was where I had some of my first teaching experiences. After my children entered elementary school, I spent many hours volunteering in the classroom for their teachers. I first began volunteering in the classrooms when my son was in preschool, and I have continued throughout the years as he and my daughter have moved through grade school. As a volunteer, some of the time I have spent in the classroom was spent by helping grade papers, making copies, helping manage groups of students during reading or art centers, and occasionally I would chaperone students during field trips. Even now with my busy work and school schedule, I still find time to volunteer weekly in their classrooms. I feel my volunteer time in both church and school have helped me gain additional insight in the skills I will need to be a successful teacher. The fact I am a parent to both a grade school

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student and a high school helps prepare me to work with a variety of ages of students when I begin teaching professionally. My personal experience as a parent will also aid me to be a better collaborator with my students parents, as I will be more sensitive to their needs. Reasons For Choosing Education as a Career I first began considering education as a career when I was a young child in elementary school. I looked up to my teachers and thought that teaching was what I wanted to do when I grew up. Teachers were helpers to me and that was something with which I could identify with. Helping others is something that has been a part of my being my entire life. It is something I enjoy and I get a sort of satisfaction knowing that I have been able to help someone succeed toward a task he/she was undertaking. That satisfaction is one of the reasons I have made the choice to take on a career of teaching. While teaching isnt a glamorous job that offers a particularly high salary, it does offer intrinsic rewards, which are more important to me than high salaries. I think teaching students is important on both the small and large scale of life. On the small scale you are helping an individual learn new tasks and ideas; on the large scale you are helping shape and influence the future adult citizens of society that will make our nations future decisions. While there are extrinsic rewards to choosing the profession of teaching, such as the family friendly work schedule and generally steady salary; the intrinsic rewards are much more appetizing to me personally. The opportunity of working one-on-one with the students, helping them achieve their tasks, witnessing that light bulb moment when they learn something new; these are some the things that I find satisfying in the teaching profession. Professional Goals

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Short-term goals are what keep me going in life, they motivate me to continue on my path and help me not get discouraged when the long-term goals seem out of reach. Currently a short-term goal of mine is to successfully complete the courses required to receive my Associates Degree in Elementary Education from CWI by the end of the spring semester of 2014. In addition to finishing the coursework necessary for my degree, I also hope to complete it with a cumulative grade point average of 3.75 or higher. Being a successful student with stellar grades will enable me to become a more effective teacher in the future. Once my studies at CWI are completed, I plan to transfer to Boise State University in the fall of 2014. During my first semester at BSU I will apply to the College of Education to begin the final coursework needed to obtain my degree in Elementary Education. I hope to do all of this while also successfully balancing the requirements of school, my job, and my responsibilities of being a wife and mom. In the long-term scope of life, I hope to eventually have my teaching degree and become a highly qualified teacher for students that are between the ages of kindergarten through third grade. It has been a dream of mine my entire life and to reach that goal would be such a satisfying experience. I also hope to teach in a location where I would look forward to going to work each day and feel like I am a part of a collaborative team. To make a difference in my students lives and make them excited to come to school each day would be my ultimate goal as a teacher. As a teacher, I will aim to create a positive classroom environment, one that encourages children to keep trying even when times are tough. I hope to achieve these goals by graduating with my Bachelors degree in Elementary Education by the end of 2016. Graduating college wont be the end of my educational goals. Additionally, I hope to continue taking additional classes throughout my teaching career so I may stay current with new and innovative ways to present the curriculum to my students. Continued periodic education of

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new technologies is another goal of mine that I would hope would have a positive outcome in the classroom. I personally think having the mindset theres always room for improvement will keep me in the habit of continually setting goals toward personal improvement for the rest of my life. Conclusion Becoming a teacher has been in the back of my mind my entire life. I have been afforded many opportunities over the past decade that have helped me glean positive teaching techniques from the many environments I have been exposed to. I look forward to the day when I can put techniques I have learned into use in my own classroom and be a positive influence in the young lives I am in contact with on a daily basis.