My plans at K:
I plan to major in French and minor in either social studies or music. I also hope to earn an education certificate. I am planning on studying abroad my junior year in either France or Senegal.
Because K is a liberal arts college, I will also be taking many courses that do not correspond to my major and minor. These classes will help me to have a wide knowledge base and allow me to understand the basics of many subjects
My plans after K:
I hope to begin teaching once I leave K. I also plan to persue a masters degree in education. My hope is to be able to teach for a year before actually starting my masters, but for that, only time will tell.
Why I want to teach:
I have wanted teach since I was in second grade. I have always thought that I would one day become a teacher. My main dilema has always been what kind of teacher I wanted to be. I really love the French language and culture, so I have decided that I would most like to become a French teacher.
I think that I would be really happy as a teacher because I have always enjoyed working with children of any age. I think that I would be better suited to teach middle school than high school just because I seem to interact better with people under the age of 15.
I think that I have had many teachers that have been great role models to me, and I would definitely like to be a role model to others. I think, that if nothing else, I can try and make middle school a more comfortable place to be for some of my students.
Here are links to various papers and projects from the past year:
Analysis of a Short Story by Maupassant
Experiences that I have had working with children:
I have worked at Camp Wightman for the past four years. I had a lot of interaction with children because I have been either a volunteer counselor and a summer staff member. I have had the opportunity to work with many different age groups at camp. I think that my experiences working as a counselor and summer staff member will help me to be a good teacher because it has allowed me to work with other adults to create a learning environment for the campers and it has allowed me to interact with children of all ages.
As part of a Senior Independant Study project that I did for Wooster School, I worked as a teacher's aide for five weeks at one of the elementary schools in Danbury, CT. During these five weeks, I found out what it was like to work with a classroom full of Kindergarten students. I think that this experience was very helpful in learning about how to keep the attention of students. It also helped me to learn a lot about myself. I learned that I have MUCH more patience than I ever thought possible!
The observation that I did for this class at a middle school in Michigan has also taught me a lot about how teachers organize their class time and how they interact with their students. I think the observation is a very important part of learning to become a teacher because it allows us to see how experienced teachers run their classrooms and it allows us to see what doesn't work. I think this was particularly a good experiance because we got to see how many different teachers related to their students
