My Journey As An Educator

As a Case Manager and Educator, I am self-motivated with helping kids, elderly, and people with disabilities from abuse, neglect, and exploitation, who voices are unheard and often are ignored. I have made it a personal mission; By joining DFPS to assure that each person lives in a safe environment but have an opportunity to thrive and have an equal chance to live like others. I feel the proper approach to making sure this happens is by addressing their needs in a holistic manner. Having worked in direct services for twenty plus years as a Case Manager mainly in non-profits organizations and in the has provided me the opportunity live out my dreams by helping people to narrow their barriers to an unhealthy and unsafe environment.

I am a single mother of three wonderful children one girl and two boys. I have recently experienced to major loss in my life that has made me take a different outlook on life. I lost my mother who was a very instrumental part of my life, and a month ago buried the last mother figure I had my maternal grandmother. But I made them both a promise I would continue on a positive path and go back and get my degree. I've always had it in mind and heart I would go back one day and there is no greater time like the present. I want my kids to look at me and be proud to call me their mother. It's always been told to me God has something great in store for me and I truly believe this is my destiny. I'm a survivor of many struggles in my life and today

Throughout this term, we have learned various models of teaching such as: Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Waldorf, Forest, HighScope and Head Start. My role as an educator is to implement a variety of learning strategies taught to me. As I learned about each models of teaching, I still hold my bias towards the Reggio Emilia Approach, but I also like some aspect of the HighScope curriculum. In my personal philosophy, I will talk about what I believe to be an “image of a child” and role of an educator.

My journey as a reader started even before I entered school, as my parents gave me books to read in the days before the inception of pre-school. My love for sports helped to develop my reading skills, as I would, with great anticipation, wait for the paperboy to deliver the daily news, so I would be able to devour all the information within the sports pages. Spurred by my passion for sports, I would go to the library and try to muster as many sports magazines as allotted, and garner as much information as I could about my heroes in the athletic world. As I become older, this led to my curiosity about the history of the sports legends that I followed and I wanted to garner more information, and began to read any biography about sports that I could attain.

Ideally, when I graduate, I would like to enter the credential program at Cal Poly Pomona. As an English Education major, I feel like this is the next logical step for me as I seek to move forward on my path of becoming a teacher. The opportunities that await me in the credential program truly excite me because I have always found my studies of English Education to be very rewarding and purposeful. I have found this to be especially true now because I am currently in the process of conducting observation hours at local high schools in Pomona as part of my English Education curriculum. When I am in the classroom, I immediately feel a sense of joy, purpose, and productivity. Outside of the classroom, I do have experience teaching as a leader for a club on campus; I am a Woman’s Bible Study Leader for Cal Poly Cru and I have found this experience of teaching college students to be the most exciting, challenging, and rewarding experience I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of. It can become overwhelming as doubts and deadlines tend to sneak in on me from time to time, but I know that being a teacher is worth every ounce of pressure because of the positive impact that a teacher has the ability to make on a student. There is an incredible statistic that states that “On average a teacher affects 3,000 children over the course of their career” (Bickley). This opportunity stirs my heart like nothing else because when I was in high school, I had an incredible teacher named

The steps to take in becoming an educator will vary with the type of path option you choose. In traditional programs, you would return to college to either complete your degree with a teaching license or complete an education program after your four year baccalaureate is completed. Here, TTT can assist you by identifying the educational program and university that fits with your desired path to teaching. Alternative licensure paths allow you to become a full-time teacher first, based upon your existing bachelor's degree, while working towards full teacher certification within three years (lateral entry policy). TTT can guide you either to a specific university or one of the Regional Alternative Licensing Centers (RALC) in North Carolina to

To begin my educational journey I wouldn’t really think it was a lot until further I got into school with a lot of things. Elementary was easy for me I only got one F. I was upset about it but never knew about it because my mom never showed me my grades until I was older. Which it didn’t really matter to me at that time when I saw them then because it had already passed. Junior High I started to slack off I didn’t want to do anything, of course I had to if I didn’t then I would fail my classes and not move on to the next grade. Then High school started I would say I did alright but I definitely could’ve done better.

The events over the last three years have been a tumultuous period in my life that I cannot just take just one event and say that this will influence my academic life and goals at Colorado Christian University, but I do believe that even in chaos; God has a plan for me. Three years ago I became a dad to twin boys. However, one of my sons Elijah was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and it was so difficult for our family to digest this new issue in our lives. For me turning forty six years old and having two more children was a shock and was not what I planned for our later years, but to find out that after two years that one of my children has a special need was truly devastating. My wife took it especially hard, but I felt the guilt

This story has to begin in my middle school years. At this age, I was already being tested annually amongst my peers. My parents had already received grades from the prior year letting them know that I was excelling in math and science. This year was different, this year they kept emphasizing on how it counts. And how it did. The grade I had received on these standardized tests statewide were enough to push me to the next level.

Bright pink book bag, yellow sundress with a watermelon print, clean white tennis shoes, and blonde hair tied back into two little pigtails. That was the first day of the journey that would bring me to where I am now, that was my first day of kindergarten. I do not remember most of what went on during my kindergarten year, most of my memory of that year comes from pictures and what my family tells me happened. It was the beginning of my next nine years at Immaculate Conception School. I had a little class of ten and my teacher’s name was Mrs. Price. One story that has been told to me several times about little kindergarten me is how for at least a month, every day after I was picked up from school my mother would ask me how my day was and every time without fail I would tell her, “it was the best day ever!”

Life is about choices. Some we Regret, some we're proud of. Some will haunt us forever. The message: we are what we chose to be. Graham Brown. My journey into the program is very interesting and also, fun. In the past I was in the call to adventure and meeting the mentor stage of my journey, in the present moment I am in the approach stage of my journey and moving on to the future, I will probably be in the road back or the resurrection stage of this special journey of mine.

When I was a kid, school for me was waking up early in the morning. I also have to study a lot in school, then after school I have to do homework. I remember my first day at school. My mom and dad, both were so happy and prepared but I was so nervous and cheerless. I didn’t like to wake up early in the morning for school , but as time flew by I started loving school which made me wake up with energy instead of tiredness. I began to enjoy the school as I made new friends and I got to know how it is like when you meet people out of your neighborhood. With my friends I had lunch together and study together. I started to understand what the purpose of the education system. Based on what I understood I think the purpose of education is really aimed at helping students get to the point where they can learn to be on their own. In this journey of education I had a lot of positive and few negative experiences,but the negative experiences also helped me growing. Positive experiences are my teachers helping me improve, and I improved more when I moved to the United States.

When working in childhood education, it is necessary to have appropriate expectations and to possess the strategies to implement your education goals. Rules, standards, guidelines, and expectations are essential at Interactive Neighborhood for Kids. INK provided a set of rules for students posted in every room. These rules and expectations don’t end with the students, they extend to the faculty and staff as well. The most important expectations stressed for volunteers are creating a safe environment and utilizing positive reinforcement. Embracing these standards and forming a classroom that is organized and which is characterized by mutual respect makes it easier for an educator to teach their students successfully and more efficiently.

Regarding her career/life work, she said that till this day not being able to finish high school and attend college like she wanted, still affects her in some way or another. She dreamed of becoming a teacher. In accordance to this, when I asked her what was her biggest regret, she said that not finishing school is something she would always regret. Then, I asked her about her work life. Ynes’s first job was at a café her husband owned, but she was the one who worked it along with the help of her mother. She was 22 years old when she started working for the first time. After that, she started working at a grocery store that was her husband’s property as well. She worked in the grocery store for many years until her husband died. After his death, she had to leave the grocery store and take care of his business. He was a lottery retailer, and even though she was not directly working with him she new about the business so it was not difficult for her to take on the ownership.

As an educator, I want to help change the world. While I realize what I hope to accomplish is limited, I know through education I can have the greatest impact. One of the major satisfactions of being an educator is enriching a student 's life. This is a very profound and satisfying way to spend a career. My primary reason for deciding to pursue a Master of Science in First-Year Studies is because I feel the strong desire to positively influence and educate students.