Audrey Kosman Reviewed by Garrett Mullins

Dr. Fiegen

Teacher Essay

18 April 2016

Auds Declassified School Survival Guide

Education has and will always be a passion of mine. Even as an elementary student, I remember

my enthusiasm for assisting fellow classmates grasp the concepts we were exploring in class. Having this

spark of interest in teaching at such an early age, I went on to tell my parents of my newfound love for

schooling. They then obviously had the follow up questions of what subject? or what age? which led

me to put in much more thought about my future. Almost immediately in elementary school, my brain

had made the connection to math without much effort and I loved the clearness of it; that there was

always a right and wrong answer. When I arrived in high school and grew through my education, I never

doubted the fact that my career would be in schools. I came to the conclusion around my sophomore

year that high school students were the group of kids that I wanted to be interacting with and teaching. I

came to this conclusion because, as a high schooler myself, I knew my responsibilities and I was

surrounded by people mature enough to respect their teachers and be challenged with the material. I

never really wanted to pursue any other career, I discovered that becoming high school math teacher

was my calling.

Due to the fact that I have always wanted to become a teacher, I would try to pick up on why I

would like or dislike certain teachers I encountered. Along with that came more specific observations

from things such as if the teacher used online resources to how they decorated their classroom. One of

the teachers that significantly influenced me and remains to be a role model as I pursue my career, was
my freshman honors biology teacher. She always found the perfect amount of material to present to us

each day to keep up busy, but not overwhelm us. She had her own quirky qualities and always seemed

very passionate and knowledgeable on her subjects. However, if she came across something she did not

know, she always wrote it down, found the answer, and returned to us the next day with the answer.

This always showed our class that she actually cared about us, our questions, and our educational

careers. In addition to her excellent teaching, she always presented herself well. You would never find

her dressed casually because he always held herself with such high self-esteem and in an appropriate

professional manner. She held no tolerance for cheating or falling asleep in class, therefore students

became better, well rounded learners due to her methods. She was the ultimate combination of strict

and silly which earned her the respect of our entire class.

After learning about the different philosophies behind teaching, I have discovered that my

morals and values lie most closely to the essentialist viewpoints on education. This is more of a

conservative approach to learning and I believe that there is a common core of knowledge that students

need to grasp through a use of discipline and also the use of a system. However, I believe that school

should be practical and be a major component in making valuable members in society. Every student

should learn the basic skills, such as reading, writing, speaking, and logical thinking along with social

skills such as respecting authority and work ethic. To relate to my students, I plan to be very easy to

communicate with such as always checking my emails, and maintaining timely responses to students in

addition to be willing to set up meetings. Also, I know math is a difficult subject for some minds to grasp,

so I plan on working with struggling students individually and try to present certain material in multiple

ways until the students mind can grasp the ideas presented. I will hold my students responsible for

learning the curriculum that I teach and will not tolerate any disrespectful behavior in my classroom.

Especially being a high school teacher, I understand there will be a lot of a social pressure and bullying,

and that I will make my classroom free from those outside distractions in the best effort to make a pure
learning environment. I will be very passionate about math, as I have always been ever since I can

remember, and portray this to my students in an effort to express the importance of the subject

accompanied by the importance of the logical thinking involved with mathematical skills.

Becoming a teacher has always been a driving force behind my education. I simply cannot

imagine myself in any other field of work because the satisfaction when I help someone get a good

grade on an assessment, to me, is unmatchable. I plan on helping as many children as I can in order to

achieve their higher goals in life, acquire better thinking skills, and generally gain a respect for authority

along with good work ethic. When I get to the point in my life where I can pass on my knowledge to my

students and be able to watch their success and growth in their own education, that is when I will have

reached my life long goal.