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Running Head: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

Autobiographical Essay
Rebekah Dahlin
Carol Billing
Education 201: Foundations of Education
Fall Semester 2013

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Autobiographical Essay: What I Want to Be
In the past twenty years of my life, I will have spent a good fraction of that time in
school. School for me was always this place where I could go to grow and learn to develop new
ideas. Perhaps that sounds like an ad for a cheesy commercial, but it is truly how I felt about
school then and the way I feel about it now. The knowledge and excitement I got from learning
new things was not my only motivation. The social aspect had its allure as well. At school you
meet so many different people (sometimes from different parts of the world) and in a close
environment such as a classroom, you are encouraged to associate with these kinds of people on
a day to day basis in a more close environment than say if you were walking down the streets of
New York City. Looking back, I can remember times when school seemed like drudgery; it was
this necessary thing that global America was pressuring many young adolescents to do in order
to prepare us for success in our future adult lives. Certain subjects such as math I was in a
constant struggle with and still to this day have I only learned to coexist with it. Although I have
had my share of grievances with the educational system, it is through the influence of my
teachers, God, family and passion for learning that have inspired me to want to pursue the career
of becoming a teacher.
Educational Background
During my elementary years, I was homeschooled from pre-K to fourth grade and
attended Barbers Point Elementary school for fifth grade. The middle school that was nearest to
our home did not impress me, so from sixth to eighth grade, I went back to homeschooling and
used an online program called Switched on Schoolhouse (SOS). Through SOS I was able to
experience learning in a different forum. Instead of learning about subjects such as math, history,

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or English in a classroom, I took these subjects online and for many of them my teachers were
present through tiny, previously recorded video clips and a lot of my learning depended on
independent study along with online reading. It took a bit of an adjustment for me to be able to
learn this way, but it was nice since I did not have to wait for the rest of the classroom to finish a
subject; I could work ahead if I wanted to and basically set my own schedule to fit my agenda.
For high school I attended two different schools: Kapolei High School which was the
closest one to our home in Hawaii and East Lyme High in Connecticut for my tenth grade year. I
finished out my remaining high school years with the SOS homeschool program. Right now, I
am in my second semester of college here at CWI and I really have not had much experience in
any particular special school programs or studies. My experiences from elementary school I feel
have inspired me towards my goal of becoming a teacher. Throughout my secondary and postsecondary years of school, I was blessed with some amazing teachers who truly inspired me to
want to pursue a career in teaching. I may not be officially certified yet, but that has not stopped
me from becoming (in a small way) an educator. With the job I have now at a daycare, I am
constantly in the role of an educator.
Work History
Since I am still a young college student fresh out of high school, my work experience is
not as much as some. I have had many volunteer opportunities, but work was always secondary
since living at home, I relied financially on my parents. This is not to say I have not acquired
some good work ethic skills. My first official job was babysitting. I loved (and still love)
working with kids and growing up with two younger siblings gave me a bit of an advance in the

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areas of responsibilities and childcare. However babysitting was not always a consistent business
since there were always families moving or relocating to different locations and because I was
young when I started babysitting, I relied heavily on my parents for traveling and car rides if an
alternative option was not available. Although it was not the most consistent job, my years of
babysitting did equip me with some new knowledge that I would be able to use in the future
when dealing with children on a job and helped hone my already existent skills in responsibility,
creativity, and early stages of childcare. I had the opportunity to work with a variety of different
families from different backgrounds and was also able to observe the differences in each child in
response to family dynamics in the home and the childs own behavior. Organization, time
management, and how to deal with different child behavioral issues were a few of the things I
gained insight about from my years of babysitting.
Today I still babysit, but it is more of a temporary side job. Since moving from Hawaii to
Idaho, I have had to look for a job and in May I got a job at a daycare called New Horizon
Academy. I work with kids from a variety of ages and stages going from ages infant up to
elementary and middle school age. It has been great to work with these kids, although the groups
I work with most are the three and four year olds. My position as Teachers Assistant focuses on
helping the younger kids develop the skills they will need in order to start preparing them for
pre-K and Kindergarten in school. These skills include things as simple as color differentiation
and what the primary colors are, how to write their name, early reading, counting their numbers,
and knowing their ABCs. While working here I have also been learning how each kid is
different; which is something most of society has been exposed to and accepted, but to truly
recognize these differences and take that into consideration when working with a child (whether

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it be a one on one basis or in a group) that is what can help make a great teacher. To celebrate our
individual uniqueness and find ways to incorporate that into an activity that I am doing with a
child or a group of children, it broadens a childs - and a teachers - perspective instead of
narrowing it.
Service and Extracurricular Activities
Aside from my job at New Horizon Academy daycare, I am also currently involved in
volunteering at the nursery at my church where I help watch about a dozen or so two year olds.
Through observation, I have seen how much a young two-year old mind can comprehend. They
may not always understand the difference between the number three and ten (depending on their
personal development stage), but they can make connections to emotions and behavior patterns
and pick up on peoples reactions to situations. It just amazes me to think how much these
younger kids soak in and how vulnerable and open their minds are at these young stages. As a
teacher, I realize it is my job to take advantage of these childrens younger years and help
develop and direct these active minds towards social, intellectual, political, and economical skills
that will lay the foundational basis for their own individual ideas and concepts later in life.
When I was living back home in Hawaii, I was involved in various activities and
volunteer opportunities. Keiki Zone was a daycare at my old church in Hawaii where I really
enjoyed my time working with the three and two year olds. I would help those kids stay calm
during the bible lesson and would get up to dance with them during song and dance time. I have
also been involved in activities outside of church nursery such as Stand Up Paddle Boarding
(SUP). SUP is an outreach ministry began by a man everyone calls Uncle George. I would

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paddle out on the water with one of Uncle Georges boards and use muscles that I was not used
to using in order to get farther out from the shoreline. SUP might be considered a leisure activity,
but it takes more work than you would think and I was able to meet a lot of great people through
the SUP program. For a while I was also part of a hula program that was mostly for elderly
women. During my time there, I interacted with many different sorts of older people who shared
a lot of their knowledge about what it was they have learned or gotten to know from their past
life experiences. Hearing these different stories enlightened me a little more about how it must be
for people of that age who have lived through so much to be able to share what they have learned
with anyone who is willing to open their minds and ears and listen. These older folks were
mentors to me and I deeply respected what it was they had to say and share with me and hope
that I may be able to pass on this knowledge to others.
Reasons for Choosing Education as a Career
From a young age, people would ask me if I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I
could honestly answer them with an I dont know because at the time the most important
decision in my life was how soon I could finish my homework so I could have free time to go out
and play with friends or do whatever it was I felt like doing. A career seemed so far away and I
was still unsure as to what it was I felt led to do. I knew I wanted have a job that had meaning. I
wanted to be in a role where I would be helping society instead of just existing in it. I also
wanted to have a career that would involve my some of my passions such as art, being outdoors,
reading, and creating. I also loved interacting with kids so having a career that involved being
around children appealed to me. At first, I thought that career in medicine and being a

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physicians assistant would be a practical choice. After all I would be helping the community, the
pay would not be too bad, and I would be able to be around children as well. I was not sure how I
would be able to incorporate some of my passions into that job, but it seemed like a logical
choice. However it was my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Muse, who truly inspired me to want to
become a teacher. Mrs. Muse was encouraging, thoughtful, and exciting while teaching us our
subjects. And although she had been a teacher for over thirty years, she still maintained that
enthusiasm that every teacher needs in order to keep a classroom of easily distracted students
interested. She seemed perfectly happy helping children learn something new and learn it well,
and that was the sort of motivation that I felt would be satisfying in a career such as teaching.
Professional Goals
My goal for the future right now is to graduate college first and earn my bachelors
degree. From there, I hope to have already obtained an internship at either a private or public
elementary school. I want to begin teaching as soon as possible, but I also want to be able to
increase my knowledge about teaching as a career. Teaching has its pros and cons and I know
from my experience in working with kids, that there will be times when the children will drive
me insane. But how to deal with that, keep my calm, and move on in continuing to educate my
students and knowing how to educate them well, that is the sort of knowledge that comes with
experience. I am also interested in learning about how to better integrate technology to be used
as a tool in teaching as well as exercising teaching strategies such as the use of student stations,
entry points that involve using the multiple intelligences of each individual student, and other
teaching strategies mentioned from the textbook Those Who Can, Teach on page 152. I also

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want to involve my previous experiences from work in order to feel a little more prepared before
entering the teaching workforce.
Right now, aside from finishing this semester of college, I want to focus on gaining
something from my experience in shadowing Mrs. Garcia, the first and second grade teacher at
Treasure Valley Baptist School. Getting involved in the classroom and observing her teaching
styles and watching how she interacts with her students has been extremely helpful to me in
providing insight about what classroom life can be like and how wonderful and tiring it can be to
work with students on an almost everyday basis. Personally I feel I have a lot to offer in creative
ideas and enthusiasm for teaching, but I also have a lot to learn. I also think it would be a good
idea for me to reach out and find some different volunteer opportunities to get involved in here in
Idaho such as offering my help at a local hospital or some other form of community service.
Through these outside the classroom experiences, I feel I would be able to incorporate a better
sense of community and from my own personal experiences in those realms, be able to
encourage kids in the classroom to get involved in activities that help serve the community. In
order to help myself achieve some of these goals, I will search for volunteer opportunities and
probably get involved in some during the summer when time is more flexible for me. Also
staying focused, working hard in all my classes, and continuing shadowing different teachers
from different schools will help me to get that much closer to reaching my goal of becoming a
teacher.