Experience and Education - Essay Example

? Autobiography Autobiography Close your eyes and picture this with me. On an early Friday morning at 6:00, Munnerah anguished in labor pains as looked with teary eyes. On the way to the hospital, despite the wee hours of the day, the traffic light turned red; as if anticipating heavy traffic. After a seemingly endless wait from the house to the hospital, both hardly noticed that only ten minutes had lapsed and Munnerah was rushed in the delivery room. The attending obstetrician-gynecologist was calming her over. The delivery eventually went smoothly. Out came a baby girl and my father who was finally relieved, burst laughing; and as immediately possible, cuddled me to his loving arms. Yes that baby girl is me. I am Ola from Saudi Arabia; I was born in May 1984. I grew up in a world of love and care among great parents and six siblings. I was fortunate to live in a large house with a large family. My brothers’ names were Ahmed, Waleed and Bader. My two sisters: one who is older than me and the other is younger, are named Noof and Razan. My father was a teacher and my mother is a full time home-keeper who takes care of me and my siblings. My early childhood experience was filled with memories of remembering my parents as my first teachers and my siblings were my classmates. I did not have any idea about schools, then; but the holistic support and warmth provided by my family was sufficient to fill my early immersion to the world. I remember my father was very strict with me but my mother was flexible and accommodating. At a very young age, my focus was only to play as I spend all my time playing with my oldest sister. My world evolved around my family as the most crucial people in my life. This nuclear family embodied the influence that I plan to share with my children; as it was instrumental in identifying my personal and professional goals. My family have provided the impetus that have driven me to want to excel in all that I do and try to be a good role model for my children along with others I come into contact with. My life, so far, is comprised of a wonderful family, great friends, a small circle of colleagues from a successful classic car restoration business which I envision to assist in supporting and sustaining a bright and productive future. My Personality I am a flexible person, exemplifying a different personality depending on the people I interact with, and the situation. I have assumed different roles as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, student, proprietor, and an active citizen of our local community. I value virtues such as adherence to integrity and respect; and the need to maintain universal peace. When I came to America, I recognized that I have to adapt to the culture and interact through communication patterns and behavior that are commonly expected. I was surprised by the sincere attempt to deal with diverse kinds of people but apparently, majority seemed to be indifferent and inflexible. Despite their reaction, I still like to interrelate with people and respect them for their beliefs, behavior and preferences. I thereby realized that I am more timid with guys than girls because my religion and my culture precluded frequent interaction with the opposite gender. I like meeting new people and I like to learn more on new cultures and ways of life. I am friendly with everyone; have a great humor; am sensitive with tendencies to be intermittently serious. I am a good listener, and I do give good advices. School Life in Saudi Arabia In 1992, in Saudi Arabia, we start the week on Saturdays, not on Mondays, as what people in the United States are accustomed of. I started the first grade in an elementary school by exemplifying mixed feelings of boredom, anxiety, and fear from being parted from my mother. I seemed to be pessimistic at attending academic classes that I remembered crying the whole day. I asked my mother to stay beside me to keep me safe and secure. She went with me to my classes for just two days because this is all the time the school could allow for any parent to accompany their children. I faced many problems on my first month because I hit all my classmates. I remembered one instance when one of my classmates asked me if she could borrow a pen; I said no, since my parents did not have money to buy one for you. My response made her extremely angry and it started a quarrel between us which ultimately led our teacher to punish me by standing at the corner of the classroom until the class finished. Furthermore, my classes were so boring: there were no productive activities, no educational trips, or innovative instructional materials. The instructional approach in Saudi Arabia was so straightforward and structured that they do not provide opportunities to cultivate creativity and innovative thinking from the students. Despite the challenges, I eventually passed my classes and I got ‘As’ on some of them. I worked hard to achieve my personal and academic goals. I started establishing strong circle of friends and kept making new ones. However, as I advanced in grade level, I started meeting difficult classes such as History and Geography. There came a time when I said to my parents, “enough please; since, I learned how to read, write, and count that is all I need for my life please get me out of school”. Through support and encouragement, in 1997, I graduated from elementary school and I started pursuing middle school education with a more positive outlook. In 1998, from 7th through 8th grades, considered as middle school, I realized that I loved it much more than my elementary years. Apart from exhibiting improved academic performance, the significant event during those times was a welcome addition of another member of our family, a baby girl, whose name I personally picked for her and my parents loved it: “Rasin”. I learned to balance my responsibilities and roles and as a consequence, I passed all my classes and my parents were so proud of me as I got higher grades. That simply meant I was prepared for tiered step in the academic ladder: high school. In 2001, I was ecstatic pursue secondary education. At first, it felt strange that I could not find anyone who I met before. In this stage of my education, I loved my classmates, teachers, and all people I previously did not know but who I encountered through this academic pursuit. It was also during this period that some young men stopped on my family’s home asking if I am ready for marriage; but every time, I did not accept any of the proposals because I acknowledged the need to focus on finishing my educational degree. Coming to the United States of America I still remember the night, like it was just last night when I told my mother that I plan to go to the United States to complete my education. I still remember the look in her face as she remarked: “what are saying young lady”? We looked at each other’s eyes and started crying. The emotions were mixed and varied; ranging from sadness for having to leave my family; to excitement at the prospects of going to another country; to fear of having to face the unknown. I took with me the pictures of my family and my dear diary. I even stole mother’s perfume so I could still spray it on my plow and hug it to remember her and keep her close to me. I hug it so tight thinking of my mother and the thought helped me go through days in a new country. In 2004, I registered to pursue a degree on Art Education. The class lectures were awesome, inspiring and encouraging. I loved achieving my personal goal to complete the degree and to excel academically. I had been happy during those four years. In Saudi Arabia, no woman can learn how to drive; so I belonged to a group of women who go together to school through sharing a van. It was also during my senior year that I got married. I was too happy because that is what I have dreamed of: to near the completion of my studies and to be a full-fledged wife. Adding new roles as a wife and future mother provided greater opportunities in sharing one’s personal experiences to students on varied situations and scenarios. The depth of emotional, personal, professional, and intellectual growth was magnified and maximized during this time. One was therefore able to reflect on one’s philosophical approaches to education. Philosophical Approaches to Education Every teacher has unique and distinct personal and professional experiences. Some teaching experiences provide extreme highs and some could be regarded as significant lows in one’s teaching career. Personally, I have had a good teaching experience, so far. Although I taught for a fairly short time in my country, I have great moments when I was teaching my students and as I shared relevant experiences with the other teachers who were with me. Through six months of teaching and working in education, I realized that teachers are also students who continue learning from the insights and comments shared by diverse academic personnel: students, colleagues, administrators, among others. As emphasized by George H. Wood, in his book entitled Time to learn: How to create high schools that serve all students, the author illumined readers on classifying high school as democracy’s finishing school, to wit: “high school… becomes not preparation for life; but rather life itself. It is only when high school experience is seen this way that we will work to make it meaningful, relevant, challenging and personal for every student” (Wood, 2005, p. xxiii). Using this as a theoretical and philosophical framework, I have been committed to making educational instruction both challenging and rewarding to all learners: students and teachers, alike. In my personal education philosophy, therefore, I have two philosophical ideologies: the first, to make instructions creative, innovative and interesting as to encourage participation and feedback from the students to enhance learning; and second, to respect diversity in each student and therefore, cater instructions according to distinct and specific needs. My focus, therefore, is to include as much cultural material as possible in my lessons. All the cultures represented in my classroom must be appropriate integrated to promote a sense of equality and importance to all of them. This is, after all, what living in the United States have taught me: to relish and appreciate equality, freedom, and opportunities for all. I can only ensure that my students understand this when I honor each representative culture in my class. It was stressed by John Dewey in his book entitled Experience and Education that “teachers are the agents through which knowledge and skills are communicated and rules of conduct enforced” (1997, p. 18). As such, students learn through an exemplary model of adherence to the ethical, moral, and legal standards that apply to the creation of a conducive learning environment for students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Political Influences on Curriculum From the theoretical framework and teaching experiences, one recognized that there are various factors that influence the design and implementation of the curriculum: political, economic, technological, diversity, learning theories and the external environment. As such, one of the most significant factors that influence the design of curriculum is political factors; particularly: “funding for hiring personnel, building and maintaining facilities and equipment. All aspects of curriculum depend on local, state and national political standards. From defining goals, interpreting curricular materials to approving examination systems, politics affects curriculum development” (Bixler, 2012, p. par. 1). Therefore, the support provided by political factors enables greater developments in the area of learning. Through one’s personal and professional learning and teaching experiences, one has confirmed that aside from the innate genuine desire to provide students with a maximized learning environment, the support from other relevant aspects of society contribute to the educator’s pursuit for excellence in teaching and learning. Concluding Remarks One’s personal experiences in life have provided the impetus and the drive to pursue a career in education. The initial fear and anxiety I experience at a very young age as a student should be appropriately and effectively addressed by educators to make the whole learning experience, from elementary to tertiary years, more encouraging, positively memorable and meaningful. The lessons learned from family members, friends, mentors and acquaintances contributed to gaining strength and competitive advantage in assessing one’s strengths and educational philosophies. Learning continues. Last semester, my husband told me we are going to visit our families. I felt so happy and my heart beat was so fast that I was almost sure the student next to me could have heard it. I could not express what I felt at the time; but I wanted to fly or to jump and scream to the whole world that I am going to see my mom and the rest of my family. I saw them on the 15th of December, and that day was so remarkably lovely. I took them in my arms and hugged them and told them how much I love and missed them badly. I remembered how my mother and father give me a long, tight and warm hug at the same time and we all started to cry together. It was all tears of joy, the tears of reunion. The days moved so fast like minutes or hours and not weeks. When the time came to bid our goodbyes, I am more confident that I would come again very soon to pay them a visit. The good times and the memories are like pictures that kept flashing in my head. It was a good trip in my life, and, like all the other events, contributed to growth and depth in personal and professional experiences through the wealth of new feelings, emotions, shared knowledge, exchange of ideas, feedback and anticipation for more. Just like experiences, education is progressive, continuous, dynamic, evolving. It would be difficult to relay information about me without including my family and loved ones. These people, places and events are integrated into a web-like database of memories, in conjunction with the knowledge, talents and skills honed from one’s academic pursuit. In turn, I envision sharing all wonderful learning, not only to my family and children, but more so, to my present and future students, as we all learn from the wealth of information that abounds. References Bixler, C. (2012). Factors That Affect the Curriculum Design Process. Retrieved July 2, 2012, from ehow.com: http://www.ehow.com/list_6529581_factors-affect-curriculum-design-process.html Dewey, J. (1997). Experience and Education. First Touchstone. Wood, G. H. (2005). Time to Learn, Second Edition: How to Create High Schools That Serve All Students. Penguin Putnam, Inc. Read More