RaceTell2

Past:

My high school honors tassel. Throughout high school I was always working hard and achieving high grades. When it came to graduation there was an honor ceremony where they announced who would be walking at graduation with honors. Of course my family had high expectations for me and wanted me to walk at graduation with honors. Ever since my mother would tell me how she imagined me graduating with honors and to work hard for such a satisfying goal I knew I could not disappoint my family. So when my name was called to come up and receive the gold tassel and robes I knew I made my family proud. I then knew I can go to college and be an even more successful college student.

Present:

A memory of a little boy during participation hours at an Elementary School. During my freshmen year at college I was fulfilling my diversity requirements, for my application packet into the early childhood education major, in a school with at risk children. I was in Ms. Gross's first grade classroom with a diverse group of children. The first three days out of the 5 I just observed but the last 2 days I participated in the classroom. While the teacher was teaching the class I would go around and make sure all the children were on task and understanding the problem. Ms. Gross was doing an English and reading lesson while I walked around the classroom and helped the students cut and paste certain words in certain columns.This one little boy was very disorganized and he had scraps of papers all over his desk. He was very behind and having trouble keeping up with the rest of the class. Finally, I went over to help him and the teacher stopped me and said he is only doing that so you will do the work for him, don't help him he needs to do it on his own. So I listened to Ms. Gross and walked over to other students to see how they were doing. I kept looking over to the little boy and he just seemed so helpless and I could not bare to see a child falling so far behind. So I went over to him and I was helping him clear his desk put things in the right columns. I asked him if he understood a certain word and his exact words to me were, "It's no hope Ms. Race I'm too dumb for this stuff." I could not believe a first grader would even know this about themselves. He made me so upset so for the rest of the day I stayed with him and helped him finish all his work without actually doing the work for him. Ms. Gross was too busy with other things to say anything to me. The last day that I was at this school, I was leaving and the boy was the first one to run up to me and give me a hug and told me not to go. Ever since that little boy I have realized that I was meant to be a teacher and every time my classes get hard and I just want to quit and pick an easier major I think of that little boy and how I want to make a difference to boys like him during my teaching career.

Future:

In the future I imagine my classroom for a first grade. It all decorated to go with the season and the lessons I will be teaching. It will be a welcoming classroom where the children will feel safe. They will be able to come to me with their problems and I will be able to help them to the best of my ability. I want to teach more than just whats in the textbook and I want the children to love learning.