Homework

I completed my first assignment for class at SCSU:

I grew up in Roslyn, New York, a suburb of New York City that is located on the North Shore of Long Island. It wasn’t until I attended college that I realized excelling at school is a valuable skill. I explored my love of science further, receiving a Sc. B and Sc. M in Biology from Brown University in 2009 and 2010. I had initially planned on pursuing a career in biomedical research, but by the time I graduated, I realized that neither the professor nor industry career track was for me. After wracking my brain for days and weeks and months, I realized that I wanted to be a teacher. Not only that, I had been meant to be a teacher my whole life, I just didn’t know it yet.
I joined Teach for America for two main reasons. First, and perhaps selfishly, I wanted to start teaching as soon as possible. I didn’t have the patience to sit in class for a year before beginning to teach myself. I wanted to teach sooner. Second, I wanted the challenge. I wanted the opportunity to teach in the high-need schools, where I was needed most, and could be challenged in a different way every single day.
One of my major reasons for wanting to teach is because I love science. I love the formalized process of inquiry and exploration. I love learning details about the way the world works, why things happen, and finding the answers to unanswered questions. I want to teach middle school science because I want to be the first science teacher that my students have. I want to inspire them to love science as much as I do. I want them to avoid ever learning that they are bad at science or don’t like science.
As far as what I have to offer the teaching profession, above all, I am passionate. I love science. I want to share this enthusiasm with my students. I am creative, constantly coming up with new ways to share information with the people around me (whether they want to hear it or not). I am determined, rarely letting anything go without a fight. Lastly, I love performing. I love speaking in front of a group of people, especially when the topic is the thing I love most, science.
Though I have had less-than-exemplary teachers, I have learned from all of them. I know not to be The Lecturer, the teacher who talks and talks and talks, and leave it to the students to find interest in the material. I won’t be the teacher who doesn’t control the classroom and spends so much time managing the students that they are left to learn the material on their own at home. As a teacher, my goal is to be my sixth grade science teacher. She is responsible for my interest in science. She made everything about it exciting, from learning the scientific method by testing the relative strengths of various brands of paper towel, to connecting examples in current media and fiction to the coursework. I want to be her. I want to have that effect on others.