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Nina Maloney
EDFN 338
(proofread by Jim Maloney)
0
Nina Maloney April 30, 2017
My dream is to become an elementary school teacher. Twelve years ago, I had the opportunity to
start teaching at a private preschool. After years of working as a credit and financial manager, I decided
to make a change. Since volunteering at my childrens preschool, I became interested in working with
young children. After taking, a few early childhood education classes at the community college, I started
working at St. Mark Preschool. I worked there for nine years, teaching three, four and five-year old
children.
I loved working with the children. It was amazing how much they grew. I felt lucky to be a part of the
childrens social, emotional and academic growth. Every day brought new adventures for both the
students and the teachers. I enjoyed planning for the days that I taught, but at the same time I had the
flexibility to change plans if necessary. I had always wanted to finish my education, and get my teaching
license, but after nine years at St. Mark my husband accepted a job in Vancouver, British Columbia and
Moving to Canada was a tremendous change for my whole family, and I could no longer work in a
preschool because my Canadian work permit did not allow it. I spent most of my time taking care of our
four-year old son. When he started kindergarten, I began volunteering in the school and reading
everything I could about how children learn. Once again, I found myself always thinking about going
back to school and obtaining a teaching license. I remembered teaching preschool and wished I could
go back to teach again. The teachers that I worked with at St. Mark were all hard working,
compassionate, and inspirational people. We worked well together for the benefit of the children in our
classes, by sharing our ideas and listening to one anothers difficulties. It was a workplace where I felt I
really belonged. Working with children is a challenge and helping them learn is what I enjoyed about
the work I had done. When I was teaching preschool, I would spend my summer vacations teaching
extra classes, and taking part in as many continuing education classes as I could. I miss those days and
am looking forward to having them again. Volunteering in a first grade class this year has helped me
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Nina Maloney April 30, 2017
realize that my decision to go back to school was the right one. I am fascinated with how children learn
and how I can help them learn. I already know that I like teaching and I do not think there will be much
I believe that elementary school children learn best by using hands-on activities. Therefore, the
students would be active learners. I hope to provide several types of instruction so that each child
learns in their most comfortable way. I have witnessed this teaching technique during my observations
in the middle school and my volunteering in the elementary school, and the students seem to benefit.
The students are active in their own learning and they seem interested and engaged. Building a
relationship with and making all students feel safe to express themselves, is also important. I have
personally benefited from classes in which I felt safe to contribute and ask questions. This was
especially important when I was in elementary school and middle school. I would, therefore, allow time
for questions and for comments about lessons in my classroom. In this way, I will create a positive
learning environment. I want to show all children that they can learn and master any subject if they
work hard. Because my philosophy is student-centered, focuses on problem solving with hands-on
investigations, and values listening to others, it aligns closely with progressivism. I believe that students
should learn that our actions affect others, and would work on classroom rules with the students. This
Along with the work I will do in the classroom, there will always be work to do outside of the
classroom as well. As a preschool teacher, I worked hard to learn as much as I could to improve my
teaching. I was always looking for new activities and approaches for the lessons I taught. I plan to work
just as hard to become a high-quality teacher in elementary school. Working together with my
colleagues, is also very important to me. I had a good working relationship with fellow teachers in the
past, and found it to be beneficial for everyone. We learned from and helped each other. I will,
therefore, do my best to work together with other teachers. I look forward to learning about new
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research on learning and teaching. I know that my work will transfer someday to a wonderful classroom
of learners.