Monday, September 29, 2014

Why school is my number one priority?

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.




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