Original Essay on Admission

Original Essay on Admission to the Education Program
Lessons From Josh
Much of my motivation for becoming a teacher
came from an experience I had in high school as a third grade teacher’s aid for
a boy named Josh. Josh had some special learning requirements and I was in
charge of helping him focus on the task at hand. I learned four basic concepts
from Josh that will help me in my future classroom.

The first thing that I realized is never to underestimate
him. He always surprised me with the material that he could absorb and how fast
he learned. Despite his learning difficulties, Josh would always surprise me by
how smart he was and everything he could remember from the previous day.

The second idea I learned from Josh was that
learning needs to be fun. Making learning fun is the key to having a successful
teaching environment. Josh always seemed to be more perceptive if we were
playing hands on games, or if I related what we were learning to a fun story.
That way no matter how difficult the subject was, Josh would still be engaged
with the subject matter.

The third thing that I learned is that each
child has a different learning level which needs to be accommodated. For
example, Josh was a very visual learner. I had much more success if I came up
with different ways to teach him visually instead of verbally.

The fourth concept that I learned from this
experience stemmed from the student-teacher relationship that I formed with
Josh. I discovered that as I taught Josh about math I could also instruct him
on life lessons. So for an hour a day, I did what I could not only to shape him
into a good student but also into a good person.

I knew from my experiences with Josh that I wanted to be a part of this great
opportunity to help children learn. By discovering that I should never
underestimate a child I will hold high standards for my students and let them
know that they are expected to perform beyond their expectations. After
realizing that learning needs to be fun, I now see I need to be a creative teacher
and try to connect serious learning with many fun and interesting educational
activities. Since each child has a different learning level, I will strive to
be flexible to accommodate for all of my students needs. By understanding the
role of a teacher, I will do my best to shape my students into the best people
that they can be. Josh helped me to learn these four concepts that I can apply
in my classroom, as well as helped motivate me to be a life-long educator.