Welcome back to my blog! This is all about why I chose to be an educator!
Let me tell you about the best teacher ever! The teacher that inspired me to become a teacher was my fourth-grade teacher. She was the best teacher that I have ever had. It was her first year teaching right out of college and she made fourth-grade a blast. She made sure that all her students were active in her classroom and if something was wrong she made sure to get to the student and check in on them; not just that day but later on too. She was a down to earth teacher who cared about everyone. I spent my senior year of high school interning with her and she allowed me to jump right in with the students and get as much hands-on practice as I could possibly get. She showed me grading techniques, teaching techniques, and teaching advice.
Who do I believe has the biggest pedagogy influence on me? The man, the myth, the legend, Lev Vygotsky! He has an impactful theory on me because of scaffolding and the Zone of Proximal Development. When I become a teacher in my own classroom, I want to be able to challenge students to their abilities and succeed while also using or without using the appropriate scaffolding if it is needed. Vygotsky has always been a theorist that stuck out to me because he really showed his research on the importance of having the child learn in their “sweet spot” but also be challenged a little to avoid boredom in the classroom.
The people who are teaching me about the why and how in the field of early childhood education are the professors here at Millersville University. If it was not for the professors here at Millersville University, I would not be able to have succeeded this far into the program to even be considered as a teacher. All of them here at college, push the teachers in training their best of their ability by giving plenty of field experience that have projects, papers or lesson plans involved. Also, another factor in helping me become a teacher are my peers. Without them, I would not be able to bounce lesson plan ideas or ideas in general off to someone about a similar topic.
The people who speak the truth to me are my professors and cooperating teachers. While I have been blessed with my professors and the cooperating teachers, they do not hold anything back. They tell me what would be the best of the situation and they give examples of the situations that pop up. My roommate/best friend is also in the Early Childhood Education department and we tell each other things that could possibly happen in the field and we bounce ideas off of each other in how we would handle a situation. We are also in the same classes, so when we do our work, we work alone and submit it but a lot of the time we are constantly giving each other advice on what we could change or say instead of something that does not sound very educational.
