Jessica Worger

EDUC 275
Pat Woodward
10/1/2013

Clutching Kinder Bear tightly in my little kindergarten arms and looking into Mrs.
Griffins eyes when she told me to take good care of him is the most prominent memory of
kindergarten I have. It is strange how I can name every one of my elementary school teachers
while when asked to name all of my Jr. High or High School teachers I could probably only list
about 1/8 of them. The teachers that truly made an impact on my life, whether it be good or bad,
stand out while the teachers that simply taught me the basics have begun to disappear in the
background. My past teachers and their different teaching philosophies, my background, events
involving diversity, and some life changing experiences have shaped the way that I view
schooling in the United States and what the purpose of schooling is.
Of course I remember all of my elementary school teachers because I spent every day
for almost an entire year with them and they were a huge part of my life but the teachers I clearly
remember in middle school or high school are different. The first teacher that comes to mind
when I think about middle school is Mrs. Cuppage, a P.E teacher. The reason why she stands out
was because after I ran the mile on the track she came up to me, patted me on the back, and told
me that I did a great job and encouraged me to try cross country, which I thrived in. She also ran
the Special Olympics program and asked for me to volunteer. She stands out to me because she
made a personal connection with me by congratulating me and encouraged me to try new things.
In high school there were quite a few teachers that have influenced the person I am today. My
Spanish teacher, Senora Carrier, brought so much enthusiasm to class every day and loved to
play games that helped us learn new words. My 10
th
grade English teacher, Ms. Schlessinger not
only taught us about literature but she brought literature to life by having the class make a
Dantes Inferno movie which was hilarious. She also cared so deeply for each one of her
students and was constantly writing letters of recommendation or helping someone with a
resume. I also have memories of teachers that did not influence me in a positive way. I was
afraid to go to my freshman Spanish class every day because the teacher would take points off
our grade if we talked incorrectly in Spanish and graded our practice worksheets extremely
harshly. Other than the handful of teachers that I adored in high school and the few teachers I
hated, I cannot recall most of the other educators in my life simply because I could not connect
with them on a deeper level than a student and teacher relationship.
Various teaching styles were used by the different teachers Ive had. Most of my history
classes were taught using many components of the essentialism teaching philosophy; which are
teaching basic skills and in a Euro-centric way. One history teacher taught differently from the
rest though, his name was Mr. Pendola and instead of lecturing at the class, he used a more
student-centered teaching philosophy. He would have students perform mock debates and split
us into groups to solve world problems, which demonstrated components of the progressivism
and social reconstructivism philosophy. My sophomore English class was very focused on
dialogical pedagogy. After we read a chapter in a book the class would form a circle and try to
answer very complex questions about a theme or an allusion. In my biology class as a senior, the
teacher had a very existentialist view on teaching. For our final project, our teacher allowed us
to research any topic that was interesting to us and perform any experiment that we felt suited the
topic. She gave us the freedom to study something that is interesting to us and I appreciated that
freedom greatly. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Simpson, believed that her students learned best
when they were singing. She found songs or made up jingles for almost every unit to help us
memorize things like prepositional phrases. I still can remember those songs to this day and this
type of learning was very helpful to me as a third grader.
I am the typical white, middle class, female who comes from a very stable four person
family living in a neighborhood that is 90% white. My parents lived well below their means and
instead of spending their money on a bigger house they spent lots of their time and money on
helping the less fortunate and they taught me the importance of giving to others and living
selflessly. The high school I went to also shared these values. Since most of the students at my
school were relatively wealthy, our high school focused much of its time on fundraisers and
collection drives for different organizations and the teachers were very involved in supporting
these causes. I feel that my school always had the best teachers, the best supplies, the greatest
support and therefore that produced the smartest students and most successful sports team
compared to the schools that were not as wealthy and that were predominantly Hispanic. I
thrived in high school, and I think a part of that is because I had parents that had time to help me
with my homework, hire me tutors, or buy me supplies. My school, since many rich students
were attending, had lots of special privileges like the school could afford to send the academic
decathlons to different states to compete where schools that dont have much money are not able
to send their students to those special events. My parents, along with many other parents of
students at my school were extremely involved and if a teacher or prinicpal did something that
made a student upset the parents would take a stand. As suggested in Johnsons paper about
privilege, most of our parents had a high socio-economic rank and were predominantly white so
we could be categorized in the privileged group. This forced the principal or administration to
pay attention to the complaints of parents since parents paid for many things in the school. Some
parents that did not make much money at different schools did not have the power to change
things because they did not have money or time to offer to that school. My school was not very
diverse and therefore I never was very open to new cultures or languages until I enrolled in
Spanish class. All of our history books and English books were based on the perspective of
Europeans and never explored the perspectives of different cultures. Most of the great works of
literature were American or European writers. Learning about the Hispanic culture in Spanish
opened my eyes to the hardships some of those people face in the U.S like racial profiling and
immigration. I also gained a new respect for Spanish culture and holidays. I feel like having a
class in my high school that explored different cultures was very beneficial because it helped me
connect to some new students and gave me a new perspective of the world.
I have always lived in a school environment where I was given everything that I would
need to succeed in school. It was not until my senior year when I started dating a Hispanic boy
that lived in a less fortunate area of town than I did and went to a less funded school than mine
that I realized some students were much less fortunate than I was. While the only thing that I
ever had to worry about was keeping good grades, he had to focus on factors other than school
like taking care of younger siblings and working to pay for school supplies. This affected his
schoolwork because instead of staying after class to get help on a subject, he either had to go
straight home to take care of his little brother or work for eight hours. He went to school where
the population was predominantly Hispanic, and his teachers expectations of grades and which
college you attended varied greatly from my rich white school. My teachers highly
encouraged every student to apply for four year universities because we had the money to submit
an application, but his teachers encouraged him to go to a community college. He couldnt even
pay for an application for a four year university. An incident which occurred that changed my
view on different languages being spoken at my school was when I became the president of the
National Honor Society. I support different languages being spoken at school, but there was a
group of Asian students that were in the club that always sat together and spoke only to each
other in an oriental language. They never were able to fully integrate into our club because they
never tried to speak with anyone else other than their group. I feel that if they had split up and
made new friends our club would have greatly benefited but instead they secluded themselves.
From my schooling experience I feel that foreign students should try to adapt to the U.S schools
to a certain point by speaking English and branching out from their own group but also retain
their cultural identity. This would create a diverse school instead of a school that has exclusive
groups in it.
There have been a few milestones in my early education which have influenced me to
become a teacher. The most important event has been when my sophomore English teacher
pulled me aside one day and told me that I would be an amazing camp counselor and that she
wanted me to volunteer for the sixth grade science camp. I had never imagined that I would love
working with and teaching kids before, but after a week of camp, I discovered that I had a
passion for helping kids grow in both knowledge and character. That science camp motivated
me to apply to a summer camp in Colorado my summer after college and in turn that motivated
me to pursue teaching. Having a teacher single you out and tell you that you would be a perfect
fit for a job shows that the teacher truly cares about your future. A second event that occurred in
high school which influenced my decision to become a teacher was when my Spanish teacher my
junior year suggested that I be a tutor. My teacher, Senora Carrier, was so enthusiastic about
teaching Spanish that it overflowed to me. I became a Spanish tutor and I loved every day that I
tutored because I felt that I was really making a difference in another students life. Whenever
my student would bring me a test that he did well on, I felt like I had accomplished something.
All of these events and experiences in my K through 12 education has influenced the
person I am today and my decision to become a teacher.