Autobiographical Essay 1

My Journey to Find My Calling: Autobiographical Essay

Hailey Waltman

College of Western Idaho

Professor Carol Billing

EDUC 201: Foundations of Education

Fall Semester 2015

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My Journey to find my Calling: Autobiographical Essay

There are those who are well aware of where they want to go in life, from an early age. I was

never one of those people, and up until my last couple of weeks of my high school career, I honestly

wasn't sure if I truly wanted to continue my Education. However, once I realized what I truly loved to

do in life I immediately began setting goals. Several things have contributed to helping me progress

this far in my journey, namely my educational background, work history, and much more.

Educational Background

I have spent my whole life living and attending school in a small, rural farm town known as

Middleton. I started out at an elementary school known as Mill Creek Elementary, and only went there

for a short year before I transferred to a newer, slightly larger school across my tiny town, known as

Heights Elementary. After I graduated from elementary school, I started at Middleton Middle School,

and then from there, found myself at Middleton High School. Since then, I have stepped out of the

Middleton boundary (but only slightly), and now attend at the College of Western Idaho. I currently

register as a sophomore at CWI, and will most likely be taking at least one, possibly two semester(s) as

a junior to finish all of my additional classes and graduate with an Associate's degree in Elementary

Education.

I never had any specific, special classes or programs set out for me, for the most part throughout

my schooling, I kept my grades safely Average, and focused more on my social life than actually

challenging myself with difficult classes. Early on in my elementary schooling, I became quite

advanced in reading. Understanding and reading anything always came easily for me, and that

eventually showed in high school as I became more and more advanced in English. I have no doubt that

I could have taken an advanced English class and excelled, but as I said before, I had no desire (at the

time) to sufficiently challenge myself.

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All throughout my years in Heights, I noticed that my teachers truly enjoyed what they were

doing. I was lucky with the teachers I had, and while some may have been seen as young and

inexperienced, they were excited to get into the classroom to teach bright, eager young minds. Others

were older and wiser, and had learned how to truly enjoy the good, and the bad, of teaching. As I

continued on to Middle School and High School, I couldn't help but notice that my teachers seemed

less and less interested in teaching, and less engaged in their students' well-being. Sure there were those

few that stood out, and helped make the path clear towards which career path I would take, but the

majority just seemed unhappy. Perhaps I was simply placed in classes that seemed to be problem

classes for the teacher, or I caught them in a yearly slump, but the difference between the later years

of my education, and those first golden years truly helped me to decide which age group I wished to

teach, which turned out to be Kindergarten.

Work History, Service and/or Extracurricular Activities

I have had two major jobs throughout my progression through adulthood, one of which was my

very first job, working as a sandwich artist at Subway. My second job was at a local daycare, known as

Little Leggs Daycare. While I worked at Subway, my job was to make the sandwich the customer

desired, in as little time as possible, while keeping a conversation with customers in line and keeping

everyone happy, as well as keeping a clean work space in what could sometimes be a chaotic

atmosphere. This job experience has more than helped me within my day to day life, by teaching me

how to effectively manage my time, multitask, deal with upset or cranky people, and keep a clean area.

These acquired skills will greatly help me when I begin my teaching career, by knowing how to keep a

schedule, and knowing how to interact with parents or children that may be upset, or even difficult co-

workers.

The knowledge I gained from the daycare was more focused on how to interact with different

age groups of children, and also taught me what their knowledge capacity is like at certain ages. I
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learned to deal with many troubled children, as well as how to comfort and teach children that come

from many different, sometime difficult, home situations. I also learned how to schedule a classroom

environment, in other words, I begin to teach circle time to the different age groups. Circle Time

included teaching the different shapes and letters, as well as the month and days of the weeks, etc. The

skills I gained from the daycare will help me in the classroom because I will understand how to interact

with the students in a way that they will appreciate and understand, as well as understand the best way

to get through to a troubled or misunderstood child. The knowledge I gained from doing circle time

will also help me to decide the specific way I want to go about designing and implementing my

schedule.

I am currently involved in volunteering in a kindergarten class in my town's elementary school,

which is already helping me understand more of what types of things the children at that age learn, and

how to organize my classroom so that the children feel comfortable. My time in the classroom has also

shown me how to go about teaching subjects in such a way that the children will not only enjoy what

they are learning, but also understand what I am teaching, as well as spark a desire in them to continue

learning.

Ethical Reasoning in Education

In my 6th grade year at Middleton Middle School, I was faced with, what I believed, a rather

difficult ethical dilemma, which began in the morning before school, and didn't end until after school

on the bus. In the morning, I had gotten to school before they opened the doors, and was standing

outside waiting for school to start with several others. There was one other girl my age, Kianna, whom

I had been close friends with in the past. While we weren't necessarily friends, we still talked every

once in a while.

As I was standing near Kianna, a few older 8th grade kids came up and started bullying her.

Kianna had sort of a unique style, she would poof her hair to the max and wore lots of makeup (very
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similar to the 80s style). These older kids started pulling at her hair, asking if it was fake. Every time

she would turn around, they would back up and pretend they hadn't been touching her. I'm ashamed to

say that I handled things in a way that would be known as Ethical Egoism, meaning I did what I

thought was best for me, and just stayed out of things. I never liked confrontation, and just hoped they

wouldn't turn on me next. I spent that entire school day feeling horrible that I hadn't intervened, but

pushed it off by telling myself that I would do the right thing the next time it happened. Little did I

know that the next time was going to be later that day, on the bus.

Once we were on the bus and rolling, things grew out of control. Unfortunately as it is with

most bus drivers, our bus driver ignored the situation and kept driving. The teens started out once more

with asking Kianna over and over again if her hair was fake, and asking how much hair spray she had

used to get it poofed that high. I could see the tears on Kianna's face as she tried to ignore them, as they

started pulling her hair again. Sadly, it took me awhile to get my courage up to confront them, but let

me tell you when I did, it was a sight to behold. Here I was, a little 70 pound, 4 foot something, 6th

grader lecturing these 8th graders on how absolutely horrible they were being. I demanded that they

apologize to Kianna, and then go sit at the back of the bus. For some reason (I still have no clue why

they actually listened to me, I must have thrown some actual viable threats in my rant), they listened,

apologized to her, and ignored us the rest of the bus ride.

I believe I was going off the Divine Command ethical approach, because at the time I was as

deeply religious as a 6th grader can be, and deeply felt that God would be severely disappointed in me if

I did not intervene. It was probably slightly still the egotistic approach, simply because I also couldn't

stand feeling guilty for not stepping in any more. This experience helped push me towards a teaching

career by showing me how I could be the one to protect those that needed protecting.

Considerations for Choosing Education as a Career

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There are many reasons I personally feel that I should be a teacher, and thus have decided to

continue on my career path towards Elementary Education, specifically, as a kindergarten teacher.

I grew up as the eldest in a large family of seven, so have always been the "teacher" in our

family. In addition to being the eldest, my mother was in college herself. With so many younger

siblings, at a young age I took on the responsibility of helping the kids with their school work. These

skills have also helped me in my current job, as I am always helping the younger school kids with their

homework in the Daycare. My favorite moments at these times are when a child is struggling with a

certain problem, and I am forced to think of several ways to explain the solution. I absolutely love

when the light bulb finally turns on for the child, and I always feel so accomplished knowing that I got

them to that point.

I have various skills that enable me to excel in the education field. As I mentioned a moment

ago, I love to find several ways to explain a problem or solution, and this would be tremendously

helpful in the Education field. I could use this trait to help other teachers that may become frustrated

with their students, I could also use this trait to evaluate teachers and their teaching styles, and help

them find other ways to teach that may work better for them. Another skill I possess is the ability to

clearly communicate with others. This is extremely helpful in an educational environment, because it

would allow me to avoid any potential miscommunications with my coworkers. This would also help

me if I was, say the principal or vice principal, because I would be able to clearly communicate issues

with parents, and rationally think of a solution. I am also very organized, which would aid me in not

losing important papers, or forgetting to inform parents of various upcoming events.

I have several skills that would not be particularly helpful in the Education field, such as skills I

received from my first job as a sandwich artist at Subway. While I may have sharpened many skills,

such as staying organized, calm in a hectic situation, and being courteous and kind to all customers (no

matter how nasty they could become); obviously skills such as making a good sandwich, or learning to
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make Iced tea, would not be beneficial to me in a kindergarten classroom. I also learned several

valuable, but not so applicable, skills at the daycare I currently work at, such as learning to change

children's diapers as quickly as possible, or effectively teaching a child to potty train. While these may

not be helpful in a professional education environment, I did learn how to keep a schedule, keep

children actively engaged in a lesson plan (even with children as young as 2), and many more valuable

things.

All of these different variables of my life have influenced me in who I am, and who I want to

become. Without my early childhood teachers loving their jobs, or my 6 younger siblings I grew up

teaching, or gaining more experience teaching at a daycare, I don't know if I ever would have realized

my true love of teaching. I am incredibly grateful for everything that happened in my life, to lead me to

become the person I am today, as a devout goal setter, and continually striving for excellence, so that

one day I may reach my ultimate goal, teaching children the way to finding their own callings. As an

unknown author once said; Great teachers teach children HOW to think, not WHAT to think.