My Student Themes

As I look back on my personal educational experiences, I see a few themes emerge.  The first theme were my parents.   My parents came from families that did not encourage higher education and even thought that to pursue higher education was an affront to where they came from.  My father did not agree with this and kind of brought my mom along with him.  Though he did not go to college, my attending college was an expectation that was set before me early in life.  My mother had a much more personal role.  She did not do well in school but made sure her children knew we were expected to not be like her.  She helped us with homework as much as she possibly could and would lament when she could not help us because she was not a good student.  She went as  far as requiring us to write book reports, work on our penmenship and work on math during our summers.  Of course, her excuse was that she was 'trying to keep us busy'.  My parents were, and still are, a driving force in my life.

A second theme that I have seen goes along with parental expectations.  I was expected to make good grades in school by my parents but I think I took that to the extreme.  I became a sort of perfectionist with my grades.  Learning came easy for me and so this was not such a difficult task.  I did not have to put forth a lot of effort to get the grade I wanted.  However, in those instances where I did not make a good grade (mind you good grades were A's or B+'s only), I was a wreck.  I became emotionally upset, would berate myself and dwell on that grade for quite a while. Oftentimes, I would see if there was any way I could redo the assignment or get extra credit to make up the grade.  It seems rather pathetic now that I look back now.  A facet of my perfectionism is that I looked to my teachers for affirmation and acceptance.  I wanted them to consider me a good student and be proud of me.  This proved to be a challenge when I went to college.  The professors did not have the time to give me the affirmation I needed.  This transition was difficult and I ended up losing my scholarship.

A third theme was one realized quite early on... I was painfully shy.  My older brother was the outgoing, boisterous,kid who always pushed limits and got into trouble.  Therefore, I became the child that flew 'under the radar'.  I sought out the good grades, behaved well,  was a high achiever but most certainly was not the highest achiever in the class.  I made sure of that.  I never wanted (and still have this tendency) to be the focus in a class setting.  I struggled with anxiety when I had to get up and read or present anything in class.  In a group setting, I will allow another to take the lead role.  I wanted to be the 2nd but never the 1st.  I have been able to overcome this theme due to work experience but I can see these tendencies in my daughter (7 yrs) already.  I hope I can combat these themes in her life and in the lives of my students.


Though I have discovered some themes in my educational experiences, I do not think I have discovered them all.  I look forward to continuing this process and seeing what I can do to impact kids that were like me and ones that were totally different.

My Role as a Teacher

As I am reading over the syllabus, I am trying to wrap my mind around what it means to develop a Personal Philosophy of Education.  What does that mean to me?  Where do I begin?  I have decided to dig in to what I feel my role as a teacher will be.  I believe that a teacher is to be someone that desires to teach kids.  About subjects, about themselves about others, and about life.  That being said, I think that teachers need to be good role models and need to realize that we live our lives in a fishbowl.  That we must always think about what a kid might think of our reactions, comments, behaviors and how that might impact each student.  We need to recognize that we do have an impact on each student (be it positive or negative) and that will affect our classroom. In our 2252 class we discussed how we as teachers are 'famous' and cannot go anywhere without being recognized.  What a sobering thought, now I not only have my own children watching my every move but now I will have another person's child watching... with or without my knowledge.

Did I do it right?

Well this is my first test blog to see if it works.