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Nina Maloney April 30, 2017

WHY I WANT TO BE A TEACHER

Nina Maloney
EDFN 338
(proofread by Jim Maloney)

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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

our family moved to Canada.

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

that I do not like.

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

approach also follows a progressivist learning focus.

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.

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