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Running head: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

My Road to Accomplishment: An Autobiographical Essay

Holly Gibson

Carol Billing

T Th 1:00-2:15, Fall 2013

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My Road to Accomplishment: an Autobiographical Essay

I can still recall my sixth grade teacher telling me I would make an excellent teacher one
day. I have always wanted to teach. Be the inspiration to children and make a change in kids
lives. The years that I had great teachers that I liked and were just fun and really motivated me
where the years that I wanted to the best I could and to prove to my teacher as well as myself. I
had years where I had teachers who compared me to other students and I hated it. I would do
everything I could to get out of school. Through those tough years it was my favorite teachers
who had made education and school fun that continued me to push forward and inspired me to
become a teacher.

Educational Background

My first schooling experience started out at a preschool for speech and social
development. I often struggled with speaking and so my parents decided to send me to a school
to help me develop and get my speech better. I first attended Parkridge Elementary School in
Nampa, Idaho. I attended there my Kindergarten and part of my first grade year. When I attended
Parkridge I continued my speech and development by being put into the speech program and
with fellow students and some teachers we would work on our speech and develop it to where it
needed to be at the time. Half way through my first-grade year we moved to Elko, Nevada where
I attended Mountain View Elementary School.

When I first attended I was sent to the speech teacher to be tested to see if I needed to be
taking speech classes. The teacher specifically told me that I was doing fine and that I did not

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need to take speech. In time it showed that Nevada was behind in education. In the fourth grade I
was put into an advanced reading and language class where we had much tougher words to work
with and pronounce. In fifth grade we moved back to Nampa where we moved in to the Vallivue
School District and I attended Sage Valley Intermediate School, not yet a middle school. It had
fifth and sixth grade at the school. As mentioned earlier Nevada is behind in education and when
my family moved back I was behind as well. I struggled with math more than any other subject.
Math did not click in my brain until my eighth grade year.

For three years math was a struggle and I was constantly having to work hard to
understand it. High School was a much better experience I understood what my teachers were
teaching me, especially my math class. I ended up having the highest grade in my math class the
entire year. I had advanced English all through high school as well as advanced history.

Right now I am currently attending College of Western Idaho, CWI. I am pursuing an

associates degree in elementary education. This will be my first actual semester at CWI but with
the help of dual credit I am ahead of credits as an incoming freshman.

At school I always reflected upon my elementary teachers who really made a difference
in my education and I wanted to be like that. I worked as a tutor my last semester of high school
and I found and even founder love for helping and teaching students. I loved when the students
finally got what I was helping them with.

Work History

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My major work experience has been in child care. I have been babysitting and Nanning
since I was twelve. I have always enjoyed working with kids, it just came natural to me. My
responsibility was to be in charge of the kids while their parents were gone. Most of the time I
had to make dinner and put them to bed. What we did in between that was up to me. Sometimes
we watched a movie or two, and sometimes we played outside. I always read to them before bed
because that is something that allows them to think about sweet things while they go to sleep.
Child care it had definitely made an impact on my development as a professional educator. I
loved to read to the kids and play games with them. I liked the fact that I was responsible for
their well-being for a period. Teach kids and look after them while they are at school and just
inspiring them and making them better people.

Nanning allowed me to get a perspective on family life. I recently watched a family of

four for the week while their parents were out of town. I understood how hard it was to be a so
called single parent and go to school and try to get everything done that I needed to. This
experience showed me as a future teacher how I might need to be accommodating for certain
family situations and types. I gained a lot of respect for teachers as well as parents.
Kohls is a job that improved my personal speaking skills when talking to adults and
other teenagers my age. For the longest time it was so much easier for me to talk with children
then it was with adults. Kohls allowed me to make conversation and that really helped to
develop me as a professional educator. I will have to talk to principals, fellow teachers, and
parents or legal guardians, and Kohls allowed me to experience a little bit of that.

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My last real job experience is I work as an administrative assistance at CWI. Every day I
work I am able to work and help people. Take messages, inventory the packages that come in
and just help where I am needed. That has given me more experience as a more office job and
working at a desk kind of what a teacher does. Answer emails, phone calls, and questions. It has
made me love my decision of a major more and more. I have seen bits and pieces of my major
and honestly each job has help me become a professional educator.

Service and/or Extracurricular Activities

During high school I was involved in Band, Swim team, cross country, national honor
society, music national honor society, and pep band. I also participated in many church and
school related service projects. Band and Pep Band contributed to my development as a
professional educator because I was in band because that is what I loved to do. It was hard work
but I was passionate enough about it that I was going to work hard and not give up. Cross
country is something I did as a sophomore, junior and senior. At times I hated cross country, I
would have rather just stayed at home and lay on the couch, but it was the motivation of
finishing something that was difficult that kept me on moving to finish my cross country seasons
out.

Swim team is something that happened by complete surprise, but it turned out to be one
of the greatest things for me. I became confident in myself. There was something about
swimming that just made me at ease.

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National Honor Society and National Music Honor Society were clubs that I was
inducted into because of my outstanding academic and music achievements. Those motivated me
to try my hardest and be the best that I can be.

All these things led me to my development as a professional educator. I learned that I

needed to be passionate about something to really enjoy it. I learned that some goals and
achievements in life are hard to reach but it is worth the effort in finishing to the end. I learned
how to be a part of a team and that I have so much going for me in life that I should just take it
the way it is. Confidence is key and to be in front of students teaching requires that I be confident
in myself and what I am teaching. Now I am able to get in front of people and speak confidently
and to be myself. The last thing that contributed to my development as a professional educator is
to try my hardest and that is the best reward I could ever have. Truth be told I did not make it
into NHS the first time, but I did not let that get me down. I continued to do my best to succeed
and it paid off.

Reasons for Choosing Education as a Career

There was never really a moment when I decided education as a career. I have just
always wanted to go into education. I didnt really decide till I had started school and I loved to
go. I decided to become a teacher because for one I love working with children. Second
becoming a teacher is just something I always wanted to do. The teachers I had really influenced
my decision to become a teacher. All my elementary school teachers were so fun and kind that I
wanted to be just like them when I grew up and became a teacher. I loved playing teacher as a

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child and being able to write on the white board and just pretend. I have considered every career
possible.

One of the major careers was a cosmetologist. That was something I could go to school
for, for a year and then I could pay myself through an actual college career. I also considered
being a counselor. I have a very unique personality in that I can connect with people. I am very
patient and I have always loved to help people and I have wanted to make a difference and that
seemed like a great career.

One of the other major careers I thought about was becoming a nanny. I have always
loved babysitting and working with kids. With nanny I was able to do both and it was something
that I could do and travel at the same time. With all of those careers I would still love to do them
but they just did not fit right in my plan.

Teaching was something that it just felt right and came naturally there was something in
teaching kids and inspiring them to be anything they want and to enjoy life was just so enticing
to me. Teaching was always the career I came back to when I switched what I wanted to do. I
anticipate many intrinsic rewards. I had a teacher ask me what I wanted to do and I told her I
wanted to be an elementary teacher and we talked some more and she told me about what to
expect as a salary. I told her I did not care about the how much I would be making. If I worked
for nothing that would be enough knowing that I am doing what I love to do. It is also satisfying
to see a child get what a teacher is teaching them, to see that light click inside of their brain is
priceless. I love to inspire children and that will be a great reward. So extrinsic rewards will be

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the vacation and the timing. This is the type of job that if I have children I can work and still be a
mother. Not many jobs get seasonal vacation time, especially summer. That is an added bonus to
becoming a teacher.

Professional Goals
The goals I have consist of inspiring my students to be the best they can be. I would love
to see most if not all my students graduate from high school and see all their hard work pay off.
I am all for making a difference and inspiring. If I could I would love to be known as the teacher
that made school fun and enjoyable. I want to achieve these goals by incorporating all the
intelligence types into my lesson plans so that each child will get something out of the lesson.
Teaching is one of the few careers that does not get as much credit as it should. Teaching
takes a special kind of person to be able to connect with the children. Teaching has so many
rewards to offer that many are not ones that can be seen. I love teachers and I cannot wait for the
day when I will be able to be the teacher that inspires kids to do their best and to be their best.