Personal Statement - Application for Teachers College
At present, I am a member of the Board of Directors of the Macaulay Tree House Day Nursery. My duties encompass selecting new teachers, issuing performance appraisals, and resolving conflicts between staff members. This administrator's vantage point has given me an invaluable education as to what makes a good teacher and exposed me to a variety of teaching philosophies and styles. I have also been a classroom volunteer for different grades, at different school districts. I volunteered for a 1st grade class at Glen Cedar Public School, where I helped a teacher with everything from conducting classroom inventories to constructing displays, as well as monitoring and assessing student progress. The following year, at the Macaulay Public School, Cedar Lane, I helped 3rd graders with their lessons, marked tests and worksheets, and helped monitor students during lunchtime. In both situations I was given the unique privilege to observe the students grow, by leaps and bounds, as learners and as human beings. The appreciable impact of a teacher on a student's life is easy to underestimate but profound.
I have seen, in all of my educational observations a variety of distinct but equally effective classroom styles. Good teachers set reasonable challenges for their students and customize the learning experience to each and every student's needs even within a busy classroom environment. Motivating students to try their best in the classroom and to apply what they learn to daily life, making every experience a learning experience -- these are the hallmarks of good teaching. I hope Teacher's College will provide me with the necessary philosophical and practical tools to become a part of the honored profession of teaching. I hope to learn to think more critically about the practice of teaching, to better enable my students to become more critical thinkers themselves, after they leave my care. I am eager to learn as a student, and to become a student once again to become a great teacher of the future.
