Growing

Teaching to me is a mystery. In fact, I find it a deeply religious experience. When I teach, I feel as if something greater than myself is at work. It's like something possesses me. But every time I am involved in teaching, I can't help but feeling that I am growing as educator and as a person as well. I guess that it's not unexpected that my first experience with teaching was a CCD class. I was only in eighth grade at the time, but it was a great experience. I had wanted to be a teacher before this, but this experience only confirmed my desire to be a teacher. And here I am eight years later, preparing for student teaching.

Well, I knew that I wanted to do more teaching so I decided to get involved in my youth group. From there, I staffed retreats, where I presented talks and planned the retreat activities. Little did I realize at the time that I was creating lesson plans and designing curriculum. Overall, these experiences furthered my desire to be an educator and provided me chance to dabble with teaching.

My first real experience with kids was at a summer youth camp. It was during this time that I realized that I could be a positive influence to my younger peers. I discovered that I could foster self-esteem in others. I also recognized how important it was to be caring and sensitive. I found that by listening and sympathizing with the campers that I could be supportive, and that I could help them identify problems and propose solutions.

As I began college, I wanted to learn more about the nature of teaching. I spent one summer working as a personal tutor. This was somewhat of a shock to me. All of my previous experiences had been with groups. This difference was quit surprising. I never realized how demanding it could be to work with only one student. However, tutoring helped me understand the complex relationship between teacher and student. The dynamics of this relationship became incredible clear when all the other variable were factored out. This experience helped me appreciate the immense power and responsibility I would have as a teacher.

My final experience before student teaching was in a middle school. It was at Rush-Henrietta that I fell in love with middle schoolers. There curiosity and need for positive reinforcement really impressed me. But I was amazed at how different and complex my students were! It was during this experience that I became aware of the different learning styles and abilities of the middles school student. Keeping this in mind, I was able to expand they way I taught, in order to meet the needs of my different students. And as a result, I began to be more conscious of the way that I taught and the methods involved in teaching such a diverse body of students.

And I know I am preparing for student teaching. At last! All of my experiences with teaching and kids have been extremely rewarding and valuable. These experiences have helped me prepare for teaching. In very different ways, each experience has been a measure of my growth as a teacher. And I look forward to teaching because of this reason. I have only begun to grow.

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Michael Fantauzzo/mikef@frontiernet.net