Because I want to be a teacher. I want to inspire those I teach.
I was born and
raised in Highland, Utah and have never been to
a school near my house. I grew up always playing school with my sister, and I
would always be the teacher. I loved kindergarten. It was fun because my sister
and I were in the same class and I really enjoyed my teacher. School started
getting really hard for me in second grade. I
couldn’t for the life of me remember how to do math, and I was really bad at
taking tests. It just got worse and worse, and most
of my teachers would go out of their way to help me understand or at least sort
of understand what they were teaching me. Fourth grade was the best because I
had a great teacher who spent time with me, and each of her students to make
sure we were all on the same page, but I think that was only to prepare me for
what was to come in fifth grade.
I had a really
difficult teacher, and my sister and I weren’t in the same class, she was in
the gifted program, while I was in a general education classroom. My teacher knew I had
a twin, and compared me to her constantly. I have never felt the way that I did
the day she told me I was stupid and asked me why I couldn’t be as smart as my
twin sister. I cried and cried, and I started
thinking that school after fifth grade would be like this. School became my
least favorite thing. I would beg my mom not to go and sometimes I would worry
so much that I would make myself sick. This teacher was convinced there was
something wrong with me. She had me tested for special needs, and learning
disabilities, which didn’t show any results. The aid that was testing me,
realized that it was better going to her for a half hour just to get out of
that environment, and I didn’t mind it one bit. One day, we were taking our state
tests and she called me back to her desk because I had already turned mine in.
She told me that I didn’t get any of the answers right, and I would have to
stay afterschool to retake it. I was so ashamed, so I called my mom and told
her I would be staying after. I remember after school she had me sit in a desk
and she handed me my test, which she erased all the answers to and had me
retake it. I was crying the whole time, how could anyone be so degrading? That
was the moment when I knew I had to become a
teacher. I need to be a teacher who lifts children up and doesn’t bring them
down.
We could’ve
probably gotten her fired, but we aren’t those kinds of people. I left that
elementary school for sixth grade to go to a charter school in American Fork. I
was so glad to leave that school, although my teacher didn’t have the best
teaching skills but, it was still better than before. I had high hopes for Jr.
High and went to a different charter school in Draper, where my mom was working
in second grade. It was really hard at first because all the classes were AP
classes. The teachers would talk to my mom and ask her why I was so lazy when
really I was working on eight hours of homework after school. I made it through
and went to a charter High school in South Jordan. High school was hard, and I just wanted to be
done. I was just starting to go back to church after being inactive for a few
years so I didn’t have very many friends. That made school really hard to get
through and I was convinced I wasn’t going to go to college. One of my teachers
told me about Snow College and that is where I ended up and got my Associates
of Science there. And here I am today at BYU-Hawaii preparing myself to be the
best teacher that I can be. 
