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Cassandra Schroeder
EDFN 338
Dr. Tim Fiegen
December 2, 2013
Pursuing an Education Degree: Why do I want to become a Teacher?
The inevitable question asked from the day a person is born to the day they ascend the
career ladder, What future career makes your heart pump while imaging yourself in that
careers path? My childhood was taken place in the 90s. I had no worries in the world,
dependent on my family. Every dream I could think of was at arms length of a reality life, so I
decided I was going to become a Priest! Well to my apprehension, I detected a rude awakening
that one of the archetype of becoming a Priest is being of the male gender. After the dream had
been destroyed at the age of three, I had to amend my life provenance. I then nurtured the idea of
a teacher, so I could have authority of the red pen to correct papers. Growing up, I evaluated my
talents and was delighted to see they were pointing in the direction of becoming a teacher. I
believe the impulse to teach is fundamentally altruistic and represents a desire to share what you
value and to empower others. I am not talking about the job of teaching as much as the calling to
teach. Most teachers I know have felt that calling at some time in their life, stated Herbert Kobl
(Cooper & Ryan, 1995, p. 10).
The calling to be an educator is not just an overnight accord, the teaching calling had
been a dream of mine from a very young age. However, before I could make a final decision, I
encountered life changing events that influenced my ultimate decision of becoming an educator.
When I was the age of three my parents brought my beautiful little sister, Emilie, into the world.
Emilie is not an ordinary child that lives life through the standards of the society. Emilie is

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special because she is mosaic downs syndrome, which gives her a unique outlook on life and has
caused her many complications most children never have. I grew up going with my mom and
Emilie to her appointments, visits to physical therapy, her doctor, child specialist, etc. I was
trained on what to do when she had a seizure, I figured out how to work with her, and I learned
how to see the world through Emilies perfect world spectacles. Then, when I was eight years
old my parents brought in my baby brother. Riley has a mild case of dyslexia. Growing up, I
took Riley under my wings and taught him how to count from one to ten. Finally at the age of
seventeen, I encountered my first teacher internship. My aspirations were now bound towards
Brandon Valley Middle School and the eighth grade special education resource room. I was
promptly engaged in the health and art class with four special needs children for my fall semester
of my senior year. The most momentous memory I have experienced, was on October 19, 2011. I
had just pulled my four children out of their heath class. We walked down the dim brick hallway
into the resource room. My observer remembered that she had an IEP meeting right that minute
and I was the only one in the room. She gave me the chapter, a PowerPoint, and said here is your
first teaching lesson. I was shrieking inside with panic; I composed myself together and started
teaching the children the days chapter on human relations. I used the worksheet, PowerPoint,
and book to help the children understand the key words and how their life is effected by human
relations. You can just imagine the look on the students faces once the lesson of human relations
started. These amazing children had not yet fully developed physically or mentally, so you can
imagine their expressions of astonishment when the lesson turned towards talks about sexual
relations, the experience was a great challenge and experience.
I have shadowed and interned five times and all by the age of nineteen. I have seen many
techniques and strategies for instructing. One method to understand the view point of a student,

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the teacher, and the observer is to keep a blog of my internship and observation experiences.
Along with all the techniques and strategies of teaching I know there are many different
philosophies of an educator. Dr. Tim Fiegen from Dakota State University stated in a lecture that
Philosophy means a way to examine and interpret the worldlove of wisdom. I have explored
and learned my teaching philosophy entails progressivism. Progressivism views the learner as
an experiencing, thinking, exploring individual. The goal is to expose the learner to the subject
matter of social experiences, social studies, projects, problems, and experiments that, when
studied by the scientific method, will result in functional knowledge from all subjects.
Progressivism regards books as tools to be used in learning rather than as sources of indisputable
knowledge. Organized freedom permits each member of the school society to take part in
decisions, and all must share their experiences to ensure that the decisions are meaningful
(Gollnick, Hall, Johnson, and Musial, 2011, p. 111-112). Through the facility of Dakota State
University, I have learned that I am talented in five personal areas: responsibility, arranger,
discipline, developer, and individualization. In a recent conference, there was a speaker, who was
given the title of Teacher of 2013 for South Dakota, her name is Katie Anderson. Anderson
talked a lot about how to become a successful teacher in just ten years. Andersons main point
was, one must emphasized on asking the audience, What is driving them to become teachers
and effective in their teaching? Educators must come to the conclusion that as teachers, the goal
is to aspire as a teacher and not just to be another individual in the world that educated the next
generation of brilliant minds. Educators are gearing the students with the tools to achieve
acceptance, love, understanding, inspiration, and my sincerest desire to aid my future students in
the same manner.

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Work Cited
Anderson, Katie. "South Dakota Teacher of the Year." Proc. of Diversity--Technology
Conference, Dakota State University, Madison, SD. 2013.
Fiegen, Dr. Tim. (2013, 20 Sept.). Philosophy: Reflections on the Essence of Education
Foundations of America Education: Becoming Effective Teachers in Challenging Times.
[Presentation]. YouTube Channel presented at Dakota State University. Madison, SD
Musial, Diann, James A. Johnson, Gene E. Hall, & Donna M. Gollnick. (2011). "Part II:
Historical Foundations of Education." Foundation of American Education: Becoming
Effective Teachers in Challenging Times. 16th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
07458: Pearson Education.
Ryan, Kevin, & James M. Cooper. (1995). Those Who Can, Teach. Seventh ed. Boston,
Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin.