aboutme

About Me

     Teaching has been lifetime goal and a long journey that seemed impossible to reach because I am Mexican American and the oldest out five children who has a learning disability. I have represented delays in auditory processing, with significant delays in memory, expressive semantics, and word retrieval. Even though, I have this learning disability does not mean it is impossible for me to reach my goals. It took me until I was twenty-three to truly understand this idea. I would be the first in my family to graduate from college and the first out of my extended family to go to graduate study. Out of my immediate family and extended family, I would have been considered to be the least likely to go on to graduate study and receive a masters degree because I am the one who is considered slow and not bright out of my family members. I have a learning disability I have faced many challenges in life that would seem to prevent me from achieving my goals.
     Growing up, I was told I was slow, stupid, and impossible for me to reach my future goals, told by my family members and professionals. As a child, adolescent, and adult, I have fought to disbelieve that I even had a learning disability because I felt disconnected from everyone else in this world. While growing up, I chose to ignore this fact about myself. I suppose this helped me because I was determined to be like everyone else who can accomplish his or her goals. In middle school, I refused to be in RSP (resource specialist program), which separated me from my peers by being in special resource classes.   Therefore, kept me from learning the same curriculum as them. I wanted the same opportunity as everyone else. In the eighth grade, I took the initiative and challenged myself to be in regular classes because I felt no one was taking me seriously or challenging me to reach my full potential academically. My teachers did not support me being out of RSP but my mother helped because she disliked my teachers.   The special resource classes were a joke because the teachers, I had didn’t know how to teach students with learning disabilities and didn’t care because they thought we were helpless and trouble makers. I got out of my special resource classes that year and than on after. I was not quite out of RSP and was put on watch and consult model, which allowed me to be in regular classes but still had my IEP (individualized education program) meetings, the program looked at my level of performance and kept a close watch on me incase I was not able to keep up with regular classes. I made sure I did not slip because I didn’t want my peers to know that I was stupid and slow. I felt as long as no one knew about my learning disability; they would treat me like everyone else. This turned out to be true for me. The people, who knew I had a learning disability, treated me as if I was stupid, slow, and a person who couldn’t act or respond quickly enough. They laughed and made jokes at me and gave me no slack, even if it was a simple mistake. The people who did not know that I had a learning disability treated me like a normal person, a person who made the same mistakes as everyone else.
     As I reached my senior year in high school, my peers talked about college. No one talked about going to junior college but Universities. I observed my mother who was a single parent kept trying to go to college because she knew she could not take care of her five children on her own with a high school diploma. My mother struggled financially and being the oldest out of five children, I took on a lot of responsibility, which put a great burden on me growing up. My mother tried to keep me at home to help her out with her children, while she tried to go to school and work. I knew I did not want to live the rest of my life taking care of her children. I hungered for my independence and a university was my ticket out. I have always taken care of my siblings when my mother could not, worked at daycare in high school, so I can afford to go to school activities, and did peer teaching for students who had sever disabilities. After doing those things I have realized that I wanted to be a teacher and in order to become a teacher I had to attend a four year school.
     During the middle of my senior year in High School, I was pulled out of class to meet a woman from the California Department of Rehabilitation (DOR), who asked me what my individualized plan for employment after high school, with my mother being present. I told her I wanted to be an Elementary school teacher and wanted to attend Stanislaus State. She told me those goals were not realistic goals for me. She told me, I should consider being a schoolteacher’s aide instead, and I should attend a community college because I was incapable of being a teacher and would struggle significantly at a university. The worse part of it all is my mother agreed with her, who also felt that those were unrealistic goals for me. I remember being so upset and heart broken after that meeting. That meeting only made me angrier, and fueled my desire to continue pursuing my goals despite their opinion.
     The most significant reason why I want to teach because I was told it was impossible and beyond my capabilities. As a result they were wrong, I graduated from a four-year college and have the ability to be a great teacher. I have a passion to help children with disabilities and who are at risk. The reason for my passion, I was the one who was deprived of proper education. It was not until I was an adult that I received the proper help I needed to understand my environment, society, and education. Children will be able to count on me as teacher to know that their goals and dreams are within their reach, and I will challenge children to reach their full potential. While volunteering at a public Elementary School in San Francisco, I would join the teachers during lunchtime in the teachers’ lounge. I asked one teacher if she had any advice for me, as I become on my way to be a future teacher. She told me not to work in public schools in San Francisco because all the parent’s who are educated parents that value education, enroll their children in private schools. The children that enroll in public schools in San Francisco are children who have learning disabilities and social problems. She told me that teachers are not taught to deal with children who have learning disabilities and who have social problems. That is exactly why I want to be a teacher to help those children.
     The teachers I have known are so reluctant to teach children with learning disabilities, other disabilities, or socio-emotional problems. The teacher that I spoke too, I had that teacher, who was frustrated with me because that teacher couldn’t find a way to teach me.   I have a desire to improve the quality of children’s lives by teaching them about their environment, society, and the skills they need to succeed in life. In order to complete this task can be challenging and requires a significant amount of knowledge, experience, and proficiency. I am willing to educate myself and receive help from other to give me the appropriate skills to teach an ethnically diverse K-6 classroom. I want to be an effective educated teacher for all children. I am hard working, highly motivated, and goal oriented.