Amie Brock

February 14, 2004

Teacher as Researcher

My Intellectual Autobiography

Oh, the Places I Have Gone . . .

If I close my eyes, I can still remember my mom reading to my brother and me each night before bed. These are my earliest and most special memories of reading. Back then, my dad worked nights, so each evening it would just be my mom, my brother, and me. We would snuggle close to one another on my parent’s huge, queen size bed. (I was only about 6 or 7, so a queen size bed seemed amazingly large!) We would stack the pillows behind our backs, slide down into the covers, and my mom would begin to read. She would read whatever books my brother and I would choose. My head would rest on my mom’s chest, and I would fall asleep as she read. These memories are some of the most comfortable, safe moments that I had as a child.

All of the moments that I shared reading with my mom and brother are the most vivid and special. Yet there is another woman in my young life who contributed to my love of reading, literacy, and education. After starting kindergarten, I loved to pretend that I was a teacher. I would make my grandmother and my brother sit at the dining room table and listen to me “teach” them. They each had pencils and paper. I would write on my little chalkboard and they would copy what I wrote and answer my questions. I actually remember giving them spelling tests! What I remember the most, however, is how patient my grandmother and my brother were with me. Both of them would sit and play along for quite awhile. Now that I look back, I realize what a very lucky little girl I was to have a family committed to my future achievements. Whether they realize it or not, their love and patience gave me opportunities to “practice” my profession.

The moments that we treasure, the ones that we consider the most meaningful, are the ones that contribute to the kind of people we become. It was those special memories that helped me to excel in school. From the moment I started kindergarten, I absolutely loved school and learning. When presented with the choice, I would usually choose reading a book over watching TV. Excelling at school became a mission for me. I enjoyed going to school and completing my homework. However, I never really thought about what I would be when I grew up. My school activities kept me too busy to worry about those kinds of things. It was not until third grade that I began to see where my life would take me.

While I pretended to be a teacher from the time I was 6, it was not until the third grade that I decided teaching would be my profession. When I reached the third grade, I fell in love with my teacher, Mrs. G. Her ability to excite her entire class, even over the most uninteresting topics, still amazes me to this day. She had a unique talent to reach every child from all different backgrounds and all ways of life. Mrs. G was the teacher who introduced me to these differences when she assigned Florence and me to be buddy-reading partners. I will never really know why she paired the two of us up. Maybe it was just how it worked out, but I think that it may have been a bit more. Whatever the reason, it impacted my life in a great way.

When I first started to work with Florence, she was not part of my “group” of friends, so I never saw her outside of school. My first impression of her was that she was very quiet and quite shy. She never talked much about her family. While other buddy pairs would talk and become friends with one another, Florence and I would just read. Then, my birthday arrived. As usual, I was having a party with all the students from my class. I invited Florence, but felt sure she would not come. However, the day of my party, as my friends started to arrive, Florence knocked on my door. She brought no gift, only a card. The card thanked me for being her friend and inviting her to my party. It also said that my party was the first birthday party she had ever attended. I could not even imagine never going to a birthday party! From that point on, I wanted Florence to share in my friendships.

After my party, Florence and I continued to work together at school. We talked a little more. I invited Florence to come out with my friends and me. Sometimes she would come and sometimes she would not. Then, one day Florence did not come to school. She was out of school for several days with the flu. I asked Mrs. G if she thought Florence would like visitors. Now that I look back, this is the moment that Mrs. G had been waiting for all along. She gave me Florence’s address, and later that day my mom and I went for a visit. Florence’s house was on the other side of our city, Staten Island NY. In NY, there are millions of apartment homes, but I had never been to them. When my mom stopped in front of Florence’s apartment, I did not really know how to feel. I was a little nervous because it was a very new experience for me. I was used to backyards and swing sets. There was none of those here. When we reached Florence’s apartment, the hallway was old and it had a stale smell. I remember squeezing my mom’s hand because I felt so uncomfortable. As we knocked on the door, my stomach felt uneasy and I did not understand why. I was seeing my world in a very different light. All of the comforts that I took for granted seemed very silly in this old, worn out building.

Eventually we did make it inside Florence’s apartment. She lived in a small two-bedroom apartment with her grandmother. I never asked about her parents, she never spoke of them either. My mom and I enjoyed our visit with Florence and her grandmother. After my first uncomfortable moments, I realized that Florence did not have all the material things that I had. However, she had a grandmother who loved and cared for her. My visit with Florence brought up many questions for me. How many other kids lived like Florence? How many other kids had even less than Florence? Why was I able to have so much more? What can I do to help them?

After my visit, I went back to school with a new outlook on my young life. I knew that the lives of each person in my class were very different. Not long after my time with Florence and her grandmother, I told Mrs. G that I wanted to be a teacher. I saw the way Mrs. G made Florence smile and laugh. I knew that Mrs. G was a very special person in her life. I knew that once day I wanted to be that special in the life of at least one child. I knew that the connection and friendship that I made with Florence helped me decide to be a teacher.

Not long after all of this happened, my parents decided to move our family from our home in NY to NC. It was hard on all of us, but I was excited and happy because I had a dream to be a teacher. I knew I could do that anywhere. Before I left NY, Mrs. G spent a few minutes with me. I still remember her telling me that I had a special gift to love and care for other people. She knew that I would one day become a wonderful teacher. As a going away gift, Mrs. G gave me a small plaque that she had received when she became a teacher. On the plaque it read,

A teacher has a special way of making learning fun,

Finding joy in everything,

And the best in everyone!
I still have that plaque and its message will forever be with me. I try to remember it on the difficult days when I wonder if I am teaching my students anything. It reminds me that if I have my student’s best interest always at heart, then I am doing my very best. I will be forever grateful for Mrs. G and her guidance. With her encouragement, she helped me see how I could share my love of learning with others. She helped me become a teacher.

So, all of these first experiences led me to where I am at this point. I have to admit that there were times when I thought that maybe teaching was not my calling. I considered law for a while and then medicine. However, no matter how many times I faltered, I always came back to teaching. I could not pull myself away from teaching and learning with children. In college, I spent as much time as possible tutoring and mentoring children. Teaching is a calling and eventually I realized that being a teacher was my calling.

Since beginning my teaching career, I have learned many things about children and learning. As a kindergarten teacher, I have seen how special and wonderful it is to be a child’s first teacher. In their eyes, you are the most beautiful, amazing person. Kindergarteners are so innocent. Watching them learn was an unbelievable experience. Each little thing they learn is so special and critical to their future learning. They want to learn. They love to learn.

My favorite time with them was reading. They want so badly to learn to read, especially once you show them all they can learn and do when you read. After our first story on the first day of school, they were picking up books and “reading” them on their own. Hearing a student read for the first time was an amazing and rewarding experience. I remember that I had to take a deep breath in to hold back the tears. It was and is an unforgettable experience to know that you had a part in their literacy development. Learning to read is one of the most liberating experiences. It brings with it a wealth of opportunities to learn and know. To be the person that started that journey for them was unexplainable.

As a kindergarten teacher, I began to see the important and critical components of effective literacy development. Each child needs to develop a strong literary background to achieve reading success. Some children came into my classroom last August on the verge of beginning to read. They, like me, had had a strong early childhood immersed in literacy. Their parents had read with them, began to teach them the alphabet and showed them its purpose. These children had parents who themselves loved to read and were able to do it well. All I had to do for them was provide the tools and resources that they needed to continue their literary journey. They would have learned to read with me or any other strong teacher.

However, like most classrooms across our country, I also had a group of students who lacked prior literacy experience. These children needed me to learn to read. Many of them came from homes where the parents did not know how to read. Some came from homes where the parents were very young and just did not know how to help their children. When I realized that these children lacked the knowledge and love of books that my other students shared, I knew that I needed to make my classroom an experience for them. I filled my classroom with as many books and pieces of literature that I could find. We read everything from nursery rhymes to the newspaper. When something exciting happened in our community, I would bring in the article. For example, when the little league team from Lewisville made it to the World Series, we read about it in class. The concept of print and its purpose are important components of literacy education. I needed to show my students how important and essential it is to learn to read. Filling my classroom with print was my way of meeting this need.

Over this semester, you will see that I am a strong believer in a mixed approach to learning to read. I strongly believe in teaching phonics in the classroom, when it is done systematically and effectively. Learning letter and sound relationships is crucial for a new reader. When they begin to read independently, they will need strategies, such as phonemic awareness, to help them make sense of unknown words. Along with phonics, I feel that invented spelling is a necessary component in a child’s reading and writing development. I see reading and writing as tools that work well side by side; therefore, I teach writing as I teach reading. Assessing the writing of students is an effective way to judge their level of phonemic awareness. It can also be beneficial when trying to discover the difficulties and weaknesses in a child’s literacy development. Finally, I feel that students need to read themselves, as well as be read to as much as possible. Both techniques introduce students to the concepts of print while improving their print processing skills, comprehension, and critical thinking.

I do not believe that there is one way to teach reading. I believe that it takes different strategies and the willingness to try new things when old things are not producing results. Teaching reading is a continuous skill building process. All of the components that I explained above are a part of the process of learning to read. It requires focus and dedication on the part of the teacher and the student. The student has to have motivation and dedication while learning to read. The teacher must have the resources and skills necessary to teach reading, as well as the ability to encourage, even the most struggling students, as they continue on their reading journey.

Today I teach Title 1 Reading. Not being a student's regular education teacher has been very hard. I miss all of the special moments that happen between a teacher and her class. It is hard to bring them in and give them back. However, I spend my day helping children reach their potential in reading. I have the ability to bring students into my room for a short time, build up their self-confidence in reading, as well as their reading ability, and then send them back into the regular classroom. My job is still very important and special to these children. I provide them with a little extra attention that they miss in their classroom. To me, a teacher in my position has the power to save these children from falling through the cracks. My goal is to make sure that they can make it on their own from now until they graduate. My promise to them is to help them achieve all that they can. I still believe that learning to read is a process and a journey for all of us. My students have missed a small step on their journey. My job now is to find that missing piece, fill it in, and push them forward. How wonderful it is to leave my job each day knowing that I am helping to complete such an important journey!

After graduating from college, people would ask me why I chose teaching. They could not understand how I could spend four years in college to be a teacher. I heard things like, “you will never make any money in teaching,” or “teaching kindergarten must be like playtime all day”. I would just smile and laugh because they are right, right? Then I would remember what a teacher of mine told me many years ago, “Teaching is the profession that makes all others possible”. Without our teachers, where would we be? Those thoughts stay with me as a constant reminder of the very important job I have chosen. While I may not make a lot of money and I may not have as much as I would if I were a doctor or lawyer, I will be able to spend my life knowing that I chose a noble profession. I will always be able to know that I was important to the growth, development, and learning of so many children. In the end, if just one of my students is able to achieve all that they hope and dream then I will have done my job. No other job can have such an impact on other people’s lives. It is because of all these reasons that I am proud to be a teacher.