Every child can think of a teacher that had an incredible impact on the trajectory of their life. Mine however, impacted me so much that I wanted nothing more than to be just like her. My kindergarten teacher was a ray of light, I can genuinely say that at five years old my life was forever altered after I left her classroom. Even as a young child I would make my younger brother play school and pretend he was my student. I made math test for my parents’ friends and tried to help my mom with every library story hour or vacation Bible school. As I got a little older, I became a program aid leader for Girl Scouts. I was able to help with the younger troop’s meetings and council at my Girl Scout camp during the summer. This is when I was able to take something I was passionate about and put my skills to the test. At the age of eleven I was set, there was no other career in mind for me and the only thing I was willing to talk about was teaching. After a few summers at my girl scout camp, I lead a small group of kids at my church’s vacation Bible school during the summer. For seven hours a day I was in charge of a group of six- to twenty five-year-olds and it was my responsibility to get them anything they needed and ensure that they had a great day filled with fun and learning. Here, I thrived, nothing could take the joy of seeing the kid’s smiling faces, or their hugs, or all their drawing and crafts they made me away from me. This is something I have been doing for five summers now and it is arguably the best part of my summer each year. As I entered high school I was able to teach at my church, so once a month I plan a lesson, game, snack, and craft for the elementary students at my church. My junior year of high school I was given the opportunity to apply for a student body representative position for my school board. Once a month I make a report of all the student clubs, athletics, and events and head to the school board meeting. This is an opportunity that is extremely important to me not only because I get be a voice for my peers, but also because I get to see how the process of a school board meeting goes. I am able to get an insight into what my future holds as an educator. Everything I have done since a young child is with the purpose of becoming a teacher when I am older. I strategically chose clubs, activities, and volunteer work with the thought of how it would help me become just as amazing as my kindergarten teacher who impacted my life more than she will ever know. I am skilled in a wide variety of areas, but anyone who knows me always says I will make such a good teacher when I am older and that is the best complement I could ever be given. If I am able to be half a woman and teach Mrs. Grove was, I will accomplish my goal in education. Overall, I hope to impact as many students as she did throughout her career and hopefully inspire some young minds to become teachers as well.

Every child can think of a teacher that had an incredible impact on the trajectory of their life. Mine however, impacted me so much that I wanted nothing more than to be just like her. My kindergarten teacher was a ray of light, I can genuinely say that at five years old my life was forever altered after I left her classroom. Even as a young child I would make my younger brother play school and pretend he was my student. I made math test for my parents’ friends and tried to help my mom with every library story hour or vacation Bible school. As I got a little older, I became a program aid leader for Girl Scouts. I was able to help with the younger troop’s meetings and council at my Girl Scout camp during the summer. This is when I was able to take something I was passionate about and put my skills to the test. At the age of eleven I was set, there was no other career in mind for me and the only thing I was willing to talk about was teaching. After a few summers at my girl scout camp, I lead a small group of kids at my church’s vacation Bible school during the summer. For seven hours a day I was in charge of a group of six- to twenty five-year-olds and it was my responsibility to get them anything they needed and ensure that they had a great day filled with fun and learning. Here, I thrived, nothing could take the joy of seeing the kid’s smiling faces, or their hugs, or all their drawing and crafts they made me away from me. This is something I have been doing for five summers now and it is arguably the best part of my summer each year. As I entered high school I was able to teach at my church, so once a month I plan a lesson, game, snack, and craft for the elementary students at my church. My junior year of high school I was given the opportunity to apply for a student body representative position for my school board. Once a month I make a report of all the student clubs, athletics, and events and head to the school board meeting. This is an opportunity that is extremely important to me not only because I get be a voice for my peers, but also because I get to see how the process of a school board meeting goes. I am able to get an insight into what my future holds as an educator. Everything I have done since a young child is with the purpose of becoming a teacher when I am older. I strategically chose clubs, activities, and volunteer work with the thought of how it would help me become just as amazing as my kindergarten teacher who impacted my life more than she will ever know. I am skilled in a wide variety of areas, but anyone who knows me always says I will make such a good teacher when I am older and that is the best complement I could ever be given. If I am able to be half a woman and teach Mrs. Grove was, I will accomplish my goal in education. Overall, I hope to impact as many students as she did throughout her career and hopefully inspire some young minds to become teachers as well.

Going through elementary I excelled at math and while I would love to say that is the case today, I cannot. When I reached seventh grade, I had a math teacher that was retiring and had unused sick days, so he choose to miss our math class most mornings. By the middle of the year Covid-19 was in full swing and we all went home, setting us behind for the following year. In eighth grade we were back in forth from online to in-person schooling and we had a teacher that was not engaged in our understand of the subject, setting us behind once again. Once we reached ninth grade our math skills were at a seventh-grade level, so our teacher had to play catch-up and review material from the previous years. Our whole high school career we have been like cats chasing a laser that we feel like we will never reach. Our lack of math skills set us behind when it came to science too. Since we were unable to understand the basic math steps in our chemistry equations, we had to stop multiple times and redo equations we would have had no problem with if we did have a substantial math background. I once loved math and science, but quickly grew irritated with the subjects once I was unable to complete them at a sufficient rate. While my essay thus far might seem contradictory to the prompt about loving math and science, the background is necessary. I was raised in a school system that did not set me up for success when it came to subjects such as math and science, however I still loved learning about the topics. I had to adapt and figure out what to do with the hand I had been delt by my schooling system, and even though I was not given a good hand I worked with what I had. In order to succeed I had to recognize that I needed additional help. I would stay after school with my physics teacher to go over examples, stay with my chemistry teacher when I had free periods, and ask my math teacher numerous questions. I had to work extra hard in order to reach the level I needed to be at to succeed. Throughout all of this I still found myself loving both math and science. There were challenges throughout my math and science journey, but I was able to overcome them even though it was not the easiest process. I want to use my love for math and science within a high school classroom. I recognize what I went through was not the typical experience and am glad it is not; however, it was mine, and it made me reach where I am now in my math and science journey. When I enter the classroom, I hope that I provide a completely different learning environment than what was offered to me. I have always wanted to be an educator because I had some amazing teachers working my may through my educational journey. If I could be half as good as my chemistry teacher who never lost his patients with me, or my freshman year math teacher who would spend a week on one subject if we didn’t understand, or my physics teach who let me talk out the problem because he knew that how I learned best, I will have completed the goal. Overall, I hope to use my negative experiences with math and science and turn them into positive ones for my future students.