Shelby Foster

EDUC 275
10/5/13
Reasons Why I Chose to Study Education

We all have teachers that we encountered in our schooling career that left a lasting
impression on us. Each one of us has had a different experience with this. I have two of those
teachers one was a Spanish teacher and one was a science teacher. They both left different and
lasting impacts on me. This paper looks at the impact they had on me and their teaching
philosophies, my cultural profile and how my culture lens is shaping my views of schooling.
I have had two teachers that left lasting impacts on my life and lead me to the teaching
profession. The first teacher would be my Spanish 3 teacher, Mrs. Jarosz. I had Mrs. Jarosz my
sophomore year which was the year that my dad died from stomach and esophageal cancer. This
had huge impact on my learning and my attendance in school. Mrs. Jarosz would take the time
out of her busy life to help me catch up on what I missed as well as making sure that I would
pass my regents for that class. She would stay after school with me to work on my conversational
skills as well as my writing skills. One of my favorite parts of her class was her PIPA lists. PIPA
lists were different Spanish vocabulary words that she thought we should know or that we might
use if we were having a conversation with a native speaker of the language. These were
vocabulary words that one would not normally find in a Spanish textbook. When it came time to
take the regents those PIPA lists really came in handy when the writing portion of the test was
taking place as well as the conversational piece to the test. Another thing that really sticks out in
my mind from her class was the writing assignments that we would do once a week. I would
repeatedly write the phrase hoy es which is redundant because hoy means today is and what I
was saying was today is is. She quickly corrected my mistake by calling me out on it. At first it
was embarrassing but I quickly learned that if I stopped making such a vital mistake that I would
no longer be called out for it. I did not make that mistake on my Spanish regent and that was
largely due to her way of correcting my mistake. The amount of fun that I had in Mrs. Jarosz
class taught me that Spanish didnt have to be boring if it was taught the right way. That is
something that I really admired about Mrs. Jarosz. I admired how easily she could turn a lesson
on Spanish vocabulary into something fun and interesting. When I become a teacher I hope that I
can do that to my lessons like she did to hers. This is why Mrs. Jarosz had an impact on me and
why she inspires me to become a teacher. Her philosophies seem to be combined with realism,
behaviorism, as well as a good mixture between a teacher centered classroom and a student
centered classroom.
The impact that a chemistry teacher from my high school, Ms. Hannon is a little bit
different than the impact that Mrs. Jarosz had on me. The most important thing to note about Ms.
Hannon is that I have never had her personally as a teacher. The chemistry teacher that I had in
high school was no where near as approachable as Ms. Hannon was. It all started my senior year
of high school in November when I asked her if I should retake my chemistry regents due to the
fact that I received a low grade and that I wanted to go to school for some form of chemistry. She
suggested that I retake my regents and she offered to help me after school with any topics that I
needed help with. I never took her up on that offer but by her saying that she would help me she
showed me that just because I wasnt a student in her class that it didnt mean that she couldnt
help me out. When I asked Ms. Hannon for help on my regents I was struggling with depression
and had plans to kill myself. When Ms. Hannon offered her help it showed me that other people
beside my immediate friends and family cared about me and that was the missing piece that I
needed to not kill myself. Ms. Hannon quickly became a mentor to me. She became someone
who I could talk to when I needed a person to listen to me without judging me. Since I never had
the pleasure of having Ms. Hannon as a teacher I cant establish what her teaching philosophies
but I can say that she played a major part in me becoming a teacher. Ms. Hannon showed me the
true definition of a caring and compassionate teacher by establishing a relationship with me. This
relationship helped me to establish my educational philosophies and beliefs.
A persons cultural background will have a strong impact on their view and or experience
of schooling. My cultural background is that I am a white middle class citizen who practices
Catholicism. My high school was made up of a majority of middle class white students and a
handful of middle class African American students. If one looked into an AP or honors class in
my high school one would see that the students were made of a majority of white students and a
select few African American students. However if one looked into a regents level class one
would see a more variety of races among the students. In my high school marginalization was
present. For example, when switching classes one would find a small separate group of African
students among a hall full of white students. For my freshman, sophomore, and junior year there
was an equal balance of power between the teachers and the principal, but for my senior year the
dynamics switched and the principal held all of the power. Since the majority of the students and
the teachers were white Americans there were no other stories to relate to the other cultures
found in my school. Instead the teachers would teach the typical American curriculum and not
integrate or relate the curriculum to the minority students. According to Grace Huerta a teacher
must be culturally sensitive. For a teacher to be culturally sensitive a teacher must take into
account all of the cultures found in the classroom and be able to integrate them into their
curriculum. In my school the students were segregated in the fact that the white and African
American students did not intermingle with one another and the teachers did nothing to help
integrate the students. These experiences that have been described in this paragraph do matter in
my emergent educational philosophy and my purpose of schooling. They have shown me how
important it is to be able to have the students be integrated as well as being able to integrate all of
the cultures present in the classroom into the core curriculum.
Enriching ones cultural lens is an important part of determining a persons educational
philosophy. I think that all students should have an equal opportunity to obtain a well-rounded
education no matter the race, gender, or age of the student. I hold this belief because in my
school the teachers didnt try to break the typical stereotype of race in education. Teachers
should build personal relationships with students to encourage them to pursue a higher education.
From my experience with Ms. Hannon I can attest how building relationships can positively
affect the student in their schooling. All teachers should be able to integrate all cultures found in
the classroom into the core curriculum. In my school the teachers only used the American culture
to connect all the students to the core curriculum so other cultures were never properly integrated
into the core curriculum. A persons cultural lens plays an important role in developing ones core
beliefs and values.
In conclusion, my history in the schooling system will influence my philosophy as well
as my approach as a potential teacher. The impacts that Mrs. Jarosz and Ms. Hannon left on my
schooling experience played and continue to play a very important role in the process of me
becoming a teacher. The experiences that I faced in my own high school have also allowed me to
develop my own core beliefs and values based on the cultural lens that were instilled upon me.
All of these factors play an important role when one is developing their educational philosophy
as well as establishing the purpose of schooling.