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Donielle Tubioli TELL Project part 2 Back (to personal page)

Three artifacts/ moments from your past, present, and future The **past moment/artifact** in my life that I would like to discuss was the moment my grandmother gave me her pearl necklace. Though it was just a necklace, it was much more.

It was my freshman year of high school when I could remember my grandmother really thinking about all that was going on in her life. She talked about how amazing her life was, and how blessed she was to have her family. She talked about what life meant to her, what God meant to her, her beliefs about her Catholic religion, and how proud she was with all that she accomplished in life.

Everyday my mom would drop me off at my grandma’s house before she went to work. Everyday my grandma would cook for me lunch and dinner. Everyday she rocked me to sleep and laid me to bed. As I got older I started to notice all of the things my grandma did for me. She was my mother when my mother went to work, and she helped to raise me to be the woman I am today.

My fondest memories of my grandma were calling her up every night, talking to her for hours on the phone about our day, anything that was new, and just life in general. I remember the nights I was stressing over tests and schoolwork, I would tell my grandma how I wasn’t going to do well, or how I was worried. She was the one who comforted me. She would say to me “Donielle, your going to do well, I know you will, just pray to God and he will help you. I will also pray for you.” She would also say things like, “ Its only one test, you will do great as long as you believe in yourself.” Those words are still with me today. Every time I worry about a test, I just think about what my grandma used to tell me and it helps me to get through it.

My grandma had a certain persona about herself. She was the kindest, most good-hearted person I knew. She would do anything for others, especially her family. Not every grandma would willingly watch her two grandchildren everyday while their mother was at work. Not every grandma would cook and bake for their entire family every holiday. My grandma took care of all the billing in the household, she handled all of my Pop Pop’s paperwork for his business. Sewed everyday for the factory, and cared for all of her children and grandchildren. She was the most ideal person, and never once did I ever hear a complaint.

Words do not even do justice for the actions my grandmother has done for me in my life. She was the one who taught me how to believe in myself and to have faith in God. She taught me that family is everything and no matter what life may throw at you, family will always be by your side.

When she handed me that pearl necklace that day in my freshman year, she told me she wanted to be alive to see me enjoy the jewelry she had. She told me that it meant so much to her to have grandchildren and she would give anything she could to provide for them.

Every dance recital, every soccer game, and every birthday and holiday, she was there. The pearl necklace she gave to me meant more to me than she would ever know. It has given me a way to hold on to my grandma, a way to stay in touch with her morals, faith and values about life and about education. It was her beliefs about the importance of striving to achieve the best you can, and becoming the person you could later be proud of that will and forever stick with me.

The **present artifact/ moment** in my life, though it only happened last week that I will like to discuss, is the moment I found out my plans for the near future with studying abroad.

Studying Abroad is something that I have always dreamt about. Ever since the day I knew it was possible to even do something like that in college, Italy was always the place I pictured myself going.

I have had many visits to the study abroad office last year, speaking with the head coordinator, who really insisted on the opportunity I will be given with studying abroad and all of the experience and knowledge I will take out of this journey abroad. I knew it was possible, but what I didn’t know was if it was possible with my major of Early Childhood Education.

Taking what I learned from my parents, aunts, my brother, and my grandma, I knew that this is an experience in college that I do not want to miss out on. My family and friends are always telling me to follow my dreams and do what I feel is best because when I look back twenty years from now, I do not want to have any regrets.

It was not until this year, one week ago today that I found out the good news. Colleen and I sat down with Dr. Starky who is the head of the Early Childhood Education Department. We introduced the idea to him and how anxiously we have been waiting to find out if we could take education classes over there. One look at us and he said it all. He was so impressed by the idea and was just as excited as we were. He told us how happy he was that we were even thinking about this and how much we had made his morning. He told us how there are several classes we can take while we are there, how amazing the food is, and how we could even experience going into an Italian classroom!

I never thought I could possibly feel that happy. I walked out of his office in a daze, a dream. I even told Colleen to pinch me because I felt as if I was dreaming. This was something I have been always dreaming about, but never did I believe it could actually come true.

If I could have give Dr. Starky a hug that day, I would have. Nothing could bring me down, not even a math concepts test that I had that day.

At that moment I realized that anything is possible. At that moment I felt in-sync with all college had to offer. Am I really going to talk out of Bloomsburg University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood Education, having the experience of studying abroad in a foreign country? Even the thought of it all now makes me wonder.

Education really is what you want it to be. Even though it does not come stress-free and easy, it really provides us with the opportunity to achieve greatness and give everything you have. Education really is a battle, an everyday struggle that the writer of “ Life is a spiritual fight” talks about, but it’s a battle I’m worth fighting for and a battle I will look back 20 years from now and be thankful I didn’t back down from.

The **future moment** in my life that I would like to discuss is that moment of gratitude and feeling of accomplishment when I see my students in the classroom learning more than just the lessons I teach them about math, reading, science, or social studies, but also about life.

The teachers I remember the most are the ones that impacted me. They were the teachers who went out of their way for their students to accommodate each and every one of their students. It was the teacher that made sure every student knew what we were learning, and the teacher who would stop in the middle of a lesson to explain something to a student who may be falling behind. These are all characteristics of teachers that I appreciated and learned from. But it was not just these attributes that the teacher made to me, but how the teachers related to her students. We were not just people in her class. We were children that she loved and cared about. The teachers I remembered most were the ones who tried their hardest to connect to each of us in every way possible.

In the future I will have these characteristics. I will have an organized classroom, designed for students with all learning styles. I will connect with each of these students to the best of my ability, but I will also connect with the parents of my students.

I hope to establish values and beliefs in each child and teach them to believe in themselves because I will believe in every single one of them. I will have my students set goals for themselves that I will be certain that they could accomplish.

The satisfaction of seeing my students succeed in academics and walk out of my classroom knowing that they could achieve anything as long as they have faith in themselves, will be enough to make me feel accomplished and at ease.

My students will be my future, the moment that they reflect in a paper about their past teachers or what education means to them. When they remember me and the values and lessons I instilled into them. It will be the moment they tell their children or their future students about a teacher they had in the past. I hope to be the Mr. Feeney to their education.