I have been working as a teacher for eight years. During this time I have seen, learned, and tried several teaching approaches, improved my collaborative practices, leadership qualities, and my 21st century teaching and learning skills. Here is a brief collection of these experiences. I am conscious and grateful for these experiences because they helped shape who I am currently as a professional educator and future leader.
I began my career in education as a substitute teacher. I really wanted to get hands-on experience in a field, that I felt fulfilled me in multiple aspects. I worked for 3 districts in Orange County. Each of these districts had very diverse student populations. From this experience I learned the value of structure in a classroom, and the importance of flexibility. One day I would be in a Kinder class working on sounds and letters, the next day I would be in a 6th grade class helping students write an essay. I would walk into classrooms that needed a lot of support, and others that could practically run themselves. This juxtapose of teaching styles helped me to develop my own.
I finished my bachelor’s and began my credential program. I learned a lot from my classes, but the most valuable and authentic learning came from my student teaching. I was fortunate enough to be given two amazing Mentor Teachers, who taught and modeled for me the importance of compassion for your learners, how to create a rich/engaging classroom environment and what a well balanced behavior system consists of. I taught first grade for three months, then I taught 5th grade for the last three months of the year. The majority of my students were English Language Learners. This brought into perspective the great need for bilingual instructors who can better support the needs of ELLs, because of their shared language acquisition experience.
I was fortunate enough to have been hired right after I concluded my student teaching. I say fortunate because our country was just hitting the financial crisis that we are still feeling the after-effects from. I did not look at this experience as something that came from luck, but from the hard work I had demonstrated while I was student teaching. I knew that I was there to make a difference and help build that confidence in all those students who are marginalized by bad teaching and impersonal public educational systems. I wanted to take all the good things that I remembered from my public education experience, blend them with new ideas, and put them to work.
I can recall my first taste of technology in education came back when I was an ELL student at an elementary school many years ago. We had a tiny Macintosh computer lab that we visited every Friday where we were allowed to “play” the “games” on the computer. Little did I know that these games were not games at all, but educational software helping me build my English vocabulary and math skills. From that point on, I knew that technology would be one my passions, and unbeknownst to me, in the a very unforeseen future, my partner in teaching. I used this experience as a guiding point of the benefits infuse my technology has on learning and teaching.
I began with two classroom computers, my personal laptop, an overhead camera, and projector. This was more than enough for me to create dozens of lessons using Microsoft Office. I would review weekly content using a PowerPoint Jeopardy template another teacher was sharing online. Finally, I created web quests in various subjects to motivate my reluctant learners, have all my students collaborate, and to push their thinking higher than what they were being asked to do. I wanted to show the students that technology was not just a game, but a tool to help them build on their knowledge. It was definitely not easy, working late evenings and weekends were the norm. But the hard work paid off seeing my students engaged, coming in early, and trying to do better.
I taught in Orange county for three years, before relocating to San diego to continue my career. I really did not want to leave my area because I knew the dire need of my students, but my school district did not take that into consideration when they handed me that pink slip at the end of my third year. They were more concerned with keeping costs down and dealing with, like everyone else in education, money shortages. I was very fortunate to arrive at a school that embraced multilingualism, 21st century learning, and social consciousness.
These are some of the most important things that have influenced my vision as a teacher and future educational leader.
I began my career in education as a substitute teacher. I really wanted to get hands-on experience in a field, that I felt fulfilled me in multiple aspects. I worked for 3 districts in Orange County. Each of these districts had very diverse student populations. From this experience I learned the value of structure in a classroom, and the importance of flexibility. One day I would be in a Kinder class working on sounds and letters, the next day I would be in a 6th grade class helping students write an essay. I would walk into classrooms that needed a lot of support, and others that could practically run themselves. This juxtapose of teaching styles helped me to develop my own.
I finished my bachelor’s and began my credential program. I learned a lot from my classes, but the most valuable and authentic learning came from my student teaching. I was fortunate enough to be given two amazing Mentor Teachers, who taught and modeled for me the importance of compassion for your learners, how to create a rich/engaging classroom environment and what a well balanced behavior system consists of. I taught first grade for three months, then I taught 5th grade for the last three months of the year. The majority of my students were English Language Learners. This brought into perspective the great need for bilingual instructors who can better support the needs of ELLs, because of their shared language acquisition experience.
I was fortunate enough to have been hired right after I concluded my student teaching. I say fortunate because our country was just hitting the financial crisis that we are still feeling the after-effects from. I did not look at this experience as something that came from luck, but from the hard work I had demonstrated while I was student teaching. I knew that I was there to make a difference and help build that confidence in all those students who are marginalized by bad teaching and impersonal public educational systems. I wanted to take all the good things that I remembered from my public education experience, blend them with new ideas, and put them to work.
I can recall my first taste of technology in education came back when I was an ELL student at an elementary school many years ago. We had a tiny Macintosh computer lab that we visited every Friday where we were allowed to “play” the “games” on the computer. Little did I know that these games were not games at all, but educational software helping me build my English vocabulary and math skills. From that point on, I knew that technology would be one my passions, and unbeknownst to me, in the a very unforeseen future, my partner in teaching. I used this experience as a guiding point of the benefits infuse my technology has on learning and teaching.
I began with two classroom computers, my personal laptop, an overhead camera, and projector. This was more than enough for me to create dozens of lessons using Microsoft Office. I would review weekly content using a PowerPoint Jeopardy template another teacher was sharing online. Finally, I created web quests in various subjects to motivate my reluctant learners, have all my students collaborate, and to push their thinking higher than what they were being asked to do. I wanted to show the students that technology was not just a game, but a tool to help them build on their knowledge. It was definitely not easy, working late evenings and weekends were the norm. But the hard work paid off seeing my students engaged, coming in early, and trying to do better.
I taught in Orange county for three years, before relocating to San diego to continue my career. I really did not want to leave my area because I knew the dire need of my students, but my school district did not take that into consideration when they handed me that pink slip at the end of my third year. They were more concerned with keeping costs down and dealing with, like everyone else in education, money shortages. I was very fortunate to arrive at a school that embraced multilingualism, 21st century learning, and social consciousness.
These are some of the most important things that have influenced my vision as a teacher and future educational leader.