As you might have read on my Family and Community pages, I had wanted to be a veterinarian since I can remember. I always had a lot of pets and the passion for animals was something I shared with both my mother and sister. When I turned sixteen, I spoke to our family veterinarian about volunteering at her clinic. A month later, I was hired there, where I worked for a year until my family moved to Florida. While working there, I did everything from giving shots, IVs, and x-rays to dental cleaning surgeries and assisting during a Cesarean Section of a Bulldog.
I had a year before college started and wanting to round up some money before I left, so I got a job at a preschool near my home. I got hired as a summer camp teacher for the after-school program, but they wanted me to start working a few months earlier to get to know the kids beforehand. Meanwhile, I worked every afternoon after school and got to assist other teachers with the younger children that ranged from 2 to 4 years old and older ones from the VPK program. It was an amazing summer and I have to say I fell in love with children and teaching.
Although I am the oldest sibling and cousin, I have never had chemistry with younger children. I would always see my sister playing and having fun with my cousins, while all I could think of was that it was my responsibility to watch them. It killed me that I had no idea how to interact with them, or any other young child. Over the course of that summer that I was working with children, I realized that maybe , even though I had not been able to get down to a kid’s level, I was fit to help guide them through the learning process.
Even after my recent discovery of my liking of children, I was still determined to become a vet, so I began attending the University of Florida as a pre-vet undergrad student. It turned out the sciences were not for me. I was not happy with the classes I was taking, and I could not see myself taking science classes for the next 8 years of my life, so I decided to chase after my newly found dream. I am now about to graduate with a Spanish major and have plans of attending graduate school for elementary education. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish and a Master’s in Education, I hope to someday teach as part of the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) curriculum for children.
This program is for children whose first language is not English. It is a way to help students integrate into the regular classroom where English is spoken. Children that are part of ESOL leave the classroom everyday for a certain period of time and get more individualized attention from a specialized teacher. The students are not spoken to in their native language by this teacher, but the instructor is there to facilitate the English language learning, since he or she has knowledge of the children’s native language and could interpret the student in case he or she had trouble communicating. The ESOL program also gives tutoring sessions to the students so that the language barrier does not become an impediment in the learning of other subjects.
When I go into the education field, I hope to have the enthusiasm and motivation that Mr. Herman had, and I hope to make students interested in the subject I teach and in learning in general. I also hope to incorporate other forms of reading to stimulate the student more visually. By using the alternative narration method learned in class I can motivate a child that fears reading because of poor understanding of the English language. He or she can interpret an image as part of a story, or even make up a story based on an image, therefore giving the student the opportunity to think critically—to formulate a plot and use the language—while at the same time incorporating creative thinking. I believe this practice might assist a student transitioning from a native language to the English language as it gives him or her the opportunity to think and speak in English.
