Blog #1 - My Teaching Identity

Chilling with Cali (aka the Jeep)

When I was in the first grade, I attended a small Catholic school, the third in a preceding line of siblings to attend St. Helen's Elementary School. That year was the first time I had ever been asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" At the time, being seven and only vaguely aware of three possible professions: firefighting, computers -the title I naively attributed to my father's job working Network Security for the local airbase-, and teaching, I picked teaching out of the understanding that firefighting was physical labor (and thus to be avoided), computers would be boring, and teaching involved being at school, which was the most fun I had ever had doing anything. Clearly the smartest choice. 

Since then I've changed so much as a person that I'd be barely recognizable to my seven year old self. Most of the changes I underwent were necessary and character building, although I think seven year old Amber would be disappointed to know I no longer wear dresses, and that my favorite color hasn't been pink for years. Some things stay the same though, no matter how much time has passed, and so, while I no longer wear my hair exclusively in a ponytail, I do still want to be a teacher. Obviously for far more sophisticated reasons now than when I was in the first grade. Now my desire to be a teacher stems from my love of summer camp. An odd connection maybe, but it's the one that brought me here today.

When I was fourteen I was an active member of 4-H, a national youth program that focuses on creating an agricultural presence in the lives of kids from the ages of eight to nineteen. It's sort of similar to the Girl or Boy Scouts in structure, although infinitely better in terms of coolness and fun. Being, at the age of fourteen, now old enough to qualify as a Senior 4-H member, I was allowed the opportunity to reign supreme over a group of young campers as Counselor at the yearly summer camp they hosted. 

It was honestly the most exciting and rewarding aspect of my life to that point. Working with my fellow counselors to keep the kids healthy, safe, engaged, excited, and most of all ensuring their time at camp was both fun and instructional was an immense challenge, but it was the best kind of challenge because it was such a fun one. It was absolutely the best part of my summers, and it's what finally convinced me teaching was the right profession for me. 

When I am a teacher I hope to bring the energy of summer camp to every lesson. I want to inspire my students to think in different directions, to see the ways that English connects to nearly everything and anything you could imagine. I want my students to watch movies and read books and fall in love with words and stories the way I did, thanks to my high school teachers. I want to show them that writing is as much about style as it is about grammar; that essays can be fun to write and even more fun to rewrite. I want my students to leave my tutelage absolutely convinced English is necessary to the full enjoyment of life, whether or not they decide to pursue it any further after high school. I want, above all, to have a meaningful impact on my students lives.
 

Good Guy English Teacher

Internet Culture seems pretty evenly divided on the subject of English teachers. On the one hand we have Good Guy English Teacher, who is that one teacher we all remember from high school who genuinely cared about individual students and inspired your class to achievements you didn't really think were possible.

Evil English Teacher

On the other end of the scale we have Evil English Teacher, who hands out F's like candy, and thinks your analysis of the text was poorly executed. No one wants to be this kind of teacher.

I want to be seen as the Good Guy English Teacher, although I imagine I won't have any difficulty grading a paper with an F if it truly deserved the poor grade.