Upon looking back at my schooling career, there are a lot of things that stick out to me as being impactful moments. Out of all those memories, one year stands out to me more than the others: fourth grade in Mrs. B’s class. Fourth grade was the year I fell in love with learning. It was the year I discovered hard work pays off. It was the year I discovered I wanted to become an educator.
Mrs. B’s classroom looked like any other elementary classroom. It had giant whiteboards in the front and rows of grey desks in tidy rows. It had a giant blue carpet in the corner with a giant wooden rocking chair. On the outside this classroom was like all the others, but it was what happened during the day, when there were students roaming about and crayons littering the floor, that the real magic took place. Unlike any of my other teachers, Mrs. B had a way of making learning come alive. I always compare her to a modern-day Ms. Frizzle. She was a teacher ahead of her time. She had us doing brain breaks (before the invention of GoNoodle). She had us exploring scientific processes in small groups and transforming ourselves into famous figures for a wax-figure museum. But above all, she built relationships with each one of her students. She was not afraid to bend-over backwards to ensure we were able to understand the information, and she made sure we were not afraid to make mistakes.
Not only did Mrs. B inspire me to go into the field of education, but she shaped my teaching philosophy in many ways. She demonstrated the importance of cultivating a love for learning among your students. Through field experiences and student teaching, I have learned that not every student is going to be interested in hearing what you have to say as a teacher. You might have an entire class that hates the topic you have to cover that day, but if you can engage the students and make them think that the topic is fun, they will learn it and they even might have fun in the process. Enthusiasm goes a long way, but so does surprising your students. I have worn sombreros, rapped math facts, and given my students top-secret missions to solve in order to teach them content they will need for the rest of their lives. I believe that by modeling a love for learning yourself, you can show your students that learning is a life-long process that is rewarding.
Teaching goes beyond the curriculum though. In today’s day and age, students are exposed to things they were never exposed to when I was young. They come from broken families, abusive relationships, and may not know when their next meal will be. What they all have in common is needing to feel loved, safe, and invested in. Sometimes that means taking off the teacher hat and putting on another one. It means buying the student who you just found out is homeless a new pair of shoes because their old ones have holes in them and are two sizes too small. It means greeting and saying good-bye to your students every time they enter and exit your classroom. It means taking your lunch break to review math facts with the student whose mother works three jobs and does not have the time to do them with them after school. Ultimately for me, teaching is taking that extra five minutes to ask your students questions about themselves. Not only can you use this information to make learning more engaging for each student, but it allows you to inspire them to achieve goals and dreams they were always told they could never achieve.
I have had a lot of people tell me that I should not become a teacher, but those people do not see the whole picture. They do not see the light a student gets in their eyes when something they have been struggling with finally clicks. They do not see the gap-toothed smiles and high-pitched giggles of students working together to help each other learn. They do not see the lasting impact just one teacher might have on one student’s life. For me, Mrs. B was that one teacher, and I will work every day of my teaching career to be that teacher for all of my students.
Mrs. B’s classroom looked like any other elementary classroom. It had giant whiteboards in the front and rows of grey desks in tidy rows. It had a giant blue carpet in the corner with a giant wooden rocking chair. On the outside this classroom was like all the others, but it was what happened during the day, when there were students roaming about and crayons littering the floor, that the real magic took place. Unlike any of my other teachers, Mrs. B had a way of making learning come alive. I always compare her to a modern-day Ms. Frizzle. She was a teacher ahead of her time. She had us doing brain breaks (before the invention of GoNoodle). She had us exploring scientific processes in small groups and transforming ourselves into famous figures for a wax-figure museum. But above all, she built relationships with each one of her students. She was not afraid to bend-over backwards to ensure we were able to understand the information, and she made sure we were not afraid to make mistakes.
Not only did Mrs. B inspire me to go into the field of education, but she shaped my teaching philosophy in many ways. She demonstrated the importance of cultivating a love for learning among your students. Through field experiences and student teaching, I have learned that not every student is going to be interested in hearing what you have to say as a teacher. You might have an entire class that hates the topic you have to cover that day, but if you can engage the students and make them think that the topic is fun, they will learn it and they even might have fun in the process. Enthusiasm goes a long way, but so does surprising your students. I have worn sombreros, rapped math facts, and given my students top-secret missions to solve in order to teach them content they will need for the rest of their lives. I believe that by modeling a love for learning yourself, you can show your students that learning is a life-long process that is rewarding.
Teaching goes beyond the curriculum though. In today’s day and age, students are exposed to things they were never exposed to when I was young. They come from broken families, abusive relationships, and may not know when their next meal will be. What they all have in common is needing to feel loved, safe, and invested in. Sometimes that means taking off the teacher hat and putting on another one. It means buying the student who you just found out is homeless a new pair of shoes because their old ones have holes in them and are two sizes too small. It means greeting and saying good-bye to your students every time they enter and exit your classroom. It means taking your lunch break to review math facts with the student whose mother works three jobs and does not have the time to do them with them after school. Ultimately for me, teaching is taking that extra five minutes to ask your students questions about themselves. Not only can you use this information to make learning more engaging for each student, but it allows you to inspire them to achieve goals and dreams they were always told they could never achieve.
I have had a lot of people tell me that I should not become a teacher, but those people do not see the whole picture. They do not see the light a student gets in their eyes when something they have been struggling with finally clicks. They do not see the gap-toothed smiles and high-pitched giggles of students working together to help each other learn. They do not see the lasting impact just one teacher might have on one student’s life. For me, Mrs. B was that one teacher, and I will work every day of my teaching career to be that teacher for all of my students.