Autobiography

          William Yeats once said, “Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire.”  Four years ago, I felt God calling me to light fires in children’s hearts through teaching music. I love working with others and am thrilled with the idea of one day being able to do this as a profession.  I want the children I have the chance to work with to be inspired as much as I was when I was their age attending school each day.  The thought that the kids that I may teach will one day look to me as a role model is the greatest thought of all.  I hope that the first day that all this comes together, I will completely realize what Yeats was talking about when he spoke on lighting a fire.

I had the chance of a lifetime—a mission trip to Honduras—during the summer of my junior year of high school.  Staying there for approximately two weeks, I witnessed a unique but different society than what I was accustomed to in the United States.  Working with hundreds of kids each day, I observed people of different races exhibiting starvation, poverty, and illnesses.  My heart began to go out to these people, and I wanted to do all I could for them while I was there.  As I traveled on the extensive airplane ride home I realized through my experiences in Honduras that I was called to become a teacher.  All the high expectations everyone had set for me to become a doctor or lawyer had to be laid aside, and I had to follow God’s desire for my life.

I was fortunate to have great teachers throughout my years as a student in the Haywood County school system.  If it had not been for the spectacular teachers I had throughout the course of my years growing up, I would not be who I am today.  They taught me educational information while instilling in me valuable life lessons.  I want the children that walk through my door to have the chance to grasp the same positive influence I had in school.  It shaped my life, and maybe I can have the same impact on someone else’s life.

Working with kids has never been a task for me; it has been more of a pastime.  Being an only child, I never got to see how one related to others and the difference in each person’s learning abilities until I was in public school.  I enjoy working with children of all ages either in one subject or various subjects.  My gratification comes from seeing how a child can go from not understanding a topic or disliking a subject completely to making a 100 on a test or that subject becoming his or her favorite subject.  The thought that I can help him or her so much in one subject makes me love teaching children no matter if I am a Sunday School teacher, a tutor, or a teacher in a school system.

The thought that children will hopefully one day look up to me as an influence is a great joy.  Teaching is an art with the need for motivation and patience a teacher has to have each day.  Not only am I looking forward to the spontaneity of the classroom, but I am also looking forward to being able to have such a positive influence in children’s lives, one that some may only see at school.  I am looking forward to seeing the faces of children a few years after they leave my classroom and seeing how they have grown and matured to young adults.

Lighting a flame in children’s lives is not everyone’s passion.  I have been one of the lucky ones that have felt called to take the challenge.  I hope not only to light a small flame in the children’s lives but a huge fire that will burn forever and ever in each life.  I hope to be the one that influences another child to take the challenge to become a teacher.  William Feather said it best when he said, “Education: Being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.  It is knowing where to go to find out what you need to know; and it’s knowing how to use the information once you get it.”  I want to be the one that is able to give children this type of education in order that they might succeed in life.