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Lauren Burgess

5 February 2017

A Cultural Autobiography & Positionality Statement

My name is Lauren Burgess, and I am an Early Childhood Education major here at the

University of South Carolina. I was raised in Fort Mill, South Carolina where I had the

opportunity to go to school in one of the top districts in South Carolina. Being that both my

parents were raised up North, Fort Mill was a luck-of-the-draw place for them to move over

twenty years ago. When my mom, Joyce, was young, she attended a very prominent Catholic

school located just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was raised in a very typical

household in a suburb town called Elizabeth (yes, this is indeed one of the many reasons my

middle name is Elizabeth) comprised of your traditional mother and father who were a part of the

old steel working community in Pittsburgh. My grandmother worked off and on throughout my

mothers childhood as a grocery store clerk while my grandfather worked in the local steel mills.

My moms family may not have been materially rich, but their household was rich with love and

care. My mother lived a very simple life as a child: she was given all she needed, but she was

raised on values such as respect, a hard work ethic, and determination. Her mother was very

strict on her even though my she wanted nothing but the best for my mom, but my grandfather

on the other hand, was the loving, fun, quiet, but generous parent of the household whom my

mother seemed to have the strongest connection with. My mom was an only child, so the

relationships she had with the neighboring children were very important to her. My mom was

always raised to go outside and make an adventure for herself. I feel this aspect of my mothers

childhood has trickled down to me and my brother because we were raised constantly playing

outdoors. Video games, electronics, and movies were considered a treat for both him and I. My
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mother later attended West Virginia University where she got a degree in sonography and later

met my father in reoccurring education night courses a few years later. My grandmother never

got to meet my father, and my grandfather met him only briefly before his passing, so

unfortunately they never got to see my mother walk down the aisle to marry my father. My Dad,

Christopher, grew up in a drastically different type of home from my mother. He was a product

of the service: my grandfather and grandmother were both young, fresh out of high school, and

because my grandfather was headed off to the Navy, he and my grandmother quickly married

only to find themselves with a baby boy at the young age of twenty-two. Shortly after my father

was born, his parents divorced and my grandmother became his primary caretaker while my

grandfather went to college and then left to traveled the states showing up from time to time to

spend few short weeks with my father traveling, fishing, or shooting together during the

summers until hed take off again. Being that my grandmother raised my father alone, her

punishments were harsh. Often my Dad was given the old fashion belt, and that sure influenced

his parenting styles while raising my brother and I. When my Dad was about eight years old, my

grandmother remarried my current step grandfather and together they had my Aunt Molly by the

time he was ten. My Dad and Aunt have a great bond because my father spent many year taking

care or her while their parents went out. Eventually he attended the Pittsburgh University and

after dropping out for a few years, he later met my mother in night classes and two years later

they were married. When a job opportunity arose for him to work in the NICU in a Charlotte,

North Carolina hospital, my parents picked up and moved.

Soon after my parents moved, I was born and my brother came along two years later. By

the time I was three, my parents were divorced and my father was remarried by the time I was

five, then divorced, and currently remarried to my step mom of three years now. I love my
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current stepmom with all my heart, but after growing up and seeing my fathers mishaps as a

parent, I can easily say I will not be making the same mistakes. Throughout the years going

between two houses was tough because I was constantly packing with a changing schedule. My

parents did their best to create normalcy, but there is only so much you can do when life is

constantly active with school, sports, after-school care, friends, and work. In the earliest years, I

had a preschool educator who took on the motherly roll when I missed my mom. Because I was

sharing split time between my mom and dad, I often missed my mom, and Mrs. Paula saw that.

She took the time to always make me feel loved, wanted, cared for, and nurtured because she

herself had gone through a similar background. From then on, I always viewed teachers as

another parent: someone you treat with kindness and respect. I value nearly every educator Ive

ever had who has shown an interest in my personal and academic well-being. My fourth-grade

teacher, Mrs. Conner, was also another source of comfort for me. Often I would stay inside

during recess to help clean her classroom or organize just because I enjoyed her company and

she enjoyed mine. I value these personal relationships between teachers and students because

they become a source of comfort for students who need it most. When I felt comfortable with the

teacher, I seemed to excel above and beyond in school. I personally feel these two teachers are

responsible for my academic success. In early elementary school, I was place in the Gifted and

Talented classes because these teachers made a point for me to feel welcomed, accepted, and

brilliant in their classrooms, and this is a goal I have for when I end up teaching. The quality of

my education is owed to my parents as well because, though they are divorced, they are college

educated, successful, loving parents who have always pushed me to be better, to get As, and to

excel it whatever activity I set my mind to. By having caretakers like my parents and these

teachers, I could take advantage of every academic opportunity because I was at ease, and happy
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for most of my academic childhood (preschool to twelfth grade). With all the amazing teachers

Ive had there have been the bad ones too. My elementary school teachers were nothing short of

spectacular, inspiring people, but when I reached middle school I realized many teachers were

not in it for the love of the profession. In eighth grade, I had a physical science teacher who

clearly was not competent for the job. He knew little of the subjects we talked about in class, had

poor communication skills with the students, and often had us doing busy work rather than

teaching us material with legitimate substance to it. In response, many students hated the class.

So many students found it hard to sit through a sixty-five-minute class period with a teacher who

had little to no interested in our well-being. When students did not respond or react in the ways

he deemed fitting for his classroom, he would call parents multiple times a week. After a few

scenarios of this, most parents started to ignore his calls. Never in my academic career had I had

a phone call home to my parents and I had two within the first semester. For reasons still

unknown, he was constantly contacting parents with little substance behind his arguments. The

majority of my classroom felt he was sexist toward females to the point where almost the entire

girl population in his four classes have had an uncomfortable or unnecessary experience with

him. Some thought he felt inferior to women while many just assumed he hated them simply

because he was a male. I had a best friend in the class who was consistently victimized in his

classroom and after so many attempts to settle the situation between him and my friends parents,

a meeting with the principle was called and the situation was blown way out of proportion. My

friend was never punished because the teacher lacked reasoning when the whole scenario should

have been handled a lot differently. Instead of calling her parents at the slightest signs of trouble,

the teacher should have taken different approaches such as discussing how they can work

together to fix awkwardness in the classroom, or he could learn to discuss tactics with other
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teachers. Besides him, I have never had a serious struggle with another teacher. Sure, a few were

boring or scatter-brained teachers that I have come across over the years, but regardless I have

not had teacher who ever made me feel incompetent in their classroom. My overall successful

experience in school, I feel, is owed to Fort Mill school district being one of the top districts in

the state.

My satisfaction and well-being in the classroom always made the idea of teaching as a

profession very realistic. Every time I went back to the question(s): Who do I want to be? What

do I want to do with my life? Mrs. Paula, my preschool teacher, always popped into my head. I

want to make children love learning the way she taught me to love learning. I want them to feel

welcomed and successful in the classroom rather than hating school. Other ideas like zoology,

genetic counseling, and history appeared in my sights, but teaching was always something sitting

in the back of my mind. I love a challenge, and I truly feel that teaching can offer me that every

single day. Never will I walk into the classroom expecting a normal or easy day because

with young kindergarteners, I expect nothing but beautiful chaos. Nothing in the world could be

better than helping future generations learn to love academics because school is never going to

disappear. Academics will only continue to become more rigorous and demanding so why not

make it fun and enjoyable while we can for students? My short-term goals are to obviously get

my degree in Early Childhood Education and to become a kindergarten teacher back in my

hometown, Fort Mill, South Carolina, or possibly Charleston. I want to teach kindergarten

because every time Ive stepped into a kindergarten classroom the room is filled with nothing but

eager learners. Eventually, I want to get my masters degree in administration so that I can

become and assistant principle or even a principle, but that will take time since the masters

program requires a minimum of three years in the classroom setting before you can start to
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pursue the administration degree. I want to attend either Winthrop University or The College of

Charleston to obtain my masters degree. I plan to work while I take classes for my degree, and

afterward I will most likely stay in the classroom a little while longer before applying for an

assistant principles or principles position. My experiences babysitting since I was fifteen years

old, job shadowing past teachers, and interning make me feel competent, like I am prepared to

teach with a full heart. I taste of the teaching life prior to pursing my degree has impacted my

views on how good I will be as a teacher. I thoroughly feel I can make a positive impact teaching

children and that has fueled my desire to teach. Lastly, I feel I am competent in running a school

because I have always been organized and ambitious. I constantly find myself cleaning,

organizing, and making sure everyone is safe and happy. I have even obtained the name Mom

in my friend group because everybody knows that my biggest concern is everybodys safety,

happiness, and well-being. I have transferred this into my love for having control over a

situation. I like to run things; I have a knack for envisioning how I want things working

simultaneously. Though this can be a fault when things do go perfectly, I am willing to learn as a

grow with my students because only the best teachers are constantly learning and growing

alongside their students.

My knack for organization will also direct my teaching philosophy: I will always have a

plan for a child. Teaching can have so many unexpected twists and turns from child who suffer

from abuse to children who need extra assistance to become academically successful. I have the

drive to want to help children succeed in whatever their need may be. My classroom will be a

haven to show children that anything is possible: they are enough. I value teachers who also have

this desire because together we can better the future for many children. The attitude in my

classroom will be success because without feeling confident, a child will not be successful. The
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purpose of teaching is to guide children in whatever they put their minds to. If a little girls goal

is to be the first president of the United States, I will stand behind her dream and help her

anyway I can. Without the teachers in my life pushing me towards my dreams, I would not be

where I am today. Secondly, another philosophy that you will see in my classroom is the idea that

students will earn what they work for. With all the standardized testing going on in schools today,

it is easy to lose a child to their own mind set. If a child in my classroom works diligently every

day to become a better student, they will see the results. I feel this is an extremely important

mind set to have in the classroom because I am a firm believer that hard work pays off in the

long run.

Overall, I would have to say my personal experiences in the classroom have been

positive. For every positive though, I have witnessed a negative story in some way. I have seen

children sucked in becoming lost is a district who cannot help them because I financial barriers. I

have witness many students face the struggles of not being academically competent enough to

succeed, and rather than having influential teachers like mine, they struggle to keep up and

eventually take the wrong road when they get into late middle school and high school. Without

teachers who want to make difference in their students lives, we cannot expect children to pull

themselves up by their boot straps. Young students need guidance, love, attention, care, and they

need to feel that they can succeed. Without those key ingredients that only teachers can provide,

there will always be a student who couldve have been so much more. As a young teacher who is

about to start her journey, I am using my experiences to push myself to be the best teacher I can

be for every child that walks into my classroom. I vow to work with any student, parent,

guardian, or teacher to ensure every child has a chance at the best future possible.