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Documente Cultură
Hyejin, Yoon
Why teachers?
One beautiful day in 7th grade art class I was trying hard to draw a great work, but
feeling all fingers and thumbs. The teacher wandering the classroom stood beside me and
stared, then whispered, You are hopeless. Her hurtful words stayed with me for a long
time, stunting my creativity. This teachers insensitive remark led me to assume a hostile
attitude toward all teachers, resulting in a poor rapport between myself and teachers in my
early school life. However, during my process of self-discovery at university, I decided not
to let one teachers opinion shape my understanding of myself. Partly because of this
teacher, I became curious, then interested and finally committed to a career in education.
The reason why I want to dedicate my life to develop teachers education is that I want give a
priceless presenta good teacherto young students and also to discover and offer pathways
to beginning teachers so that they can become good and perhaps great teachers.
What is a good teacher? And how can we help prospective teachers develop their
professional life and teaching style to be a good teacher? Teachers have to be aware of the
potentially great impact they can have on students, especially younger ones. Teachers have
a great influence on students acquisition of knowledge and skills and also students emotions
oneself. An ideal teacher training system should enable teachers to reflect on themselves
and aided by a wide range of materials and methods; create the conditions to help them to set
their own teaching philosophy. Therefore, focusing on reflective practice for teacher
education, I would like to conduct research about curriculum reform in teacher education by
expanding teachers capacity to reflect on practice to improve their classroom practice and
students growth.
efforts. However, the drastic changes have led to a gap between the governments policy on
education and the reality that teachers encounter. Between the ideal class models dealing
with English in a communicative way and low capability driven by lack of speaking and
writing competence, English teachers are liable to lose their will to teach because they feel
inadequate. For example, while teaching English to students in secondary schools, I met
other English teachers who were confronting the dilemma and observed them having to
emphasizing parts like reading and grammar, that they can teach, and skipping or minimizing
parts such as listening, speaking and writing that they cannot teach well. Moreover, a
highlighted many Korean teachers frustration with their career. In the survey, the
proportion of Korean teachers who answered I feel regret for being a teacher. is the highest
with 20.1% compared to OECD member nations average of 9.5%. This phenomenon is
even more pronounced among respondents who were English teachers. Hence, I came to
believe that it is crucial that the government put teachers professional development of the
Why GMU?
The major reason why George Mason Universitys (GMU) Teaching and Teacher
Education program looms large in my mind is its outstanding faculty. In my quest for a
proper graduate program, I am enthusiastic about learning at GMU with its excellent faculty.
I expect that faculty members interest in school reform through teachers professional
academic interests are the theoretical foundations and applications of critical thinking in
I also firmly believe that GMU is a school which provides an ideal climate for me to
family. Because of its location in the Washington, D.C. area, I expect that there would be a
lot of opportunities to interact with others from varied cultural backgrounds. It is through
this cosmopolitan setting that I would progress as an educational leader with an international
Why me?
(SASP). Every year, SASP selects about 80 students who have proven their potential to
become global leaders of tomorrow. I submitted my application to SASP and later was
Working for publishing companies for seven years, I have participated in publishing
many books related to English education. The target audience was English learners.
During the last three years of my editing career, I led a team of seven editors and successfully
result, my colleagues and I made high quality books that are still representative products of
the company. Strong teamwork grounded in mutual trust greatly increased work efficiency.
What I have learned through this enterprise is the true meaning of team work: Teamwork is
conflict between two values in my mind; an enterprise value for making a profit and my life
value for being a useful and productive educator. The company stressed maximizing profits
from minimal capital and labor. The primary task of the employees was to produce books as
quickly and cheaply as possible. Given the publishing process, the relation between the
speed and the quality of the production is in reverse proportion. Now that I considered my
editing job a sort of educational activity, I felt my own values were at odds with the
Hence, I quit my job and attended graduate school majoring in English education.
At that time, I was strongly motivated to study about education that I assumed a role of a
leader in classes, discussions, and group projects. Furthermore, during three years of my
teaching career, I developed a heartfelt love for the profession. By virtue of my innovative
by the principal of Nanwoo middle school and my name was on the excellent instructors list
affiliated educational research institute. At KICE, I would like to conduct research into
quality improvement of the teaching and learning environment by supporting teachers
professional development and training. As an alternative, I may wish to stay associated with