Autbiography of a Learner

For as long as I can remember, my parents always provided me with whatever I needed. While my parents didn’t come from money, they both worked incredibly hard to provide me and my siblings a better life than what they had. That being said, my parents did not graduate from college but they always supported us in school and set the expectation for us to go to college. Even today, my parents still push for me to continue my education and to be the best that I can be within my content. While in college, I switched my major many times and honestly never thought I would be a teacher. I had taken a few classes in different majors and never really found one I enjoyed until my first education class. The professor had engaging activities and really allowed me to see what being a teacher would be like, and once I got a taste of it, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Once I knew I what I wanted, I had to decide on an age group I wanted to teach. I thought about my academic experiences and immediately thought of my love of middle school and I knew middle school is where I wanted to be.


Reflecting back on my middle school years, I definitely went through that awkward stage of trying to find myself and figuring out who I was or wanted to be. I remember being worried about what I looked like or how I was dressed in comparison to my peers. In my mind, I was always being judged and in the spotlight, while in reality no one probably even cared what I was wearing or what my hair looked like. Socially, I had a very intimate circle of friends that I would talk to and hang out with regularly. However, if my circle of friends wasn’t in my class or lunch, I would easily find peers that I could socialize with so that I wouldn’t have to be alone.


Academically, I was a pretty average student. I took a few honors classes, mostly because my friends were in them, and had a B+/A- average throughout middle school. While middle school is definitely an awkward stage physically, I truly enjoyed my middle school experience. A major reason for this was my teachers. My teachers really went out of their way for the students and made learning fun and personalized. One of my favorite academic memories from middle school was a project in English based on “The Giver.” We were asked to create our own utopia and present it to our class. I remember making my utopia out of candy and having money trees everywhere. This project is something I will always remember because I remember being so proud of what I had created and was excited to present it to my class and teacher. Another reason I loved this project was also due to the teacher of the class, who made the class fun and really connected with his students.


Being a middle schooler, I didn’t really think about what a ‘meaningful education’ was but I knew which classes I enjoyed going to and which teachers I loved. Thinking about what ‘meaningful education’ is to me now, I think my middle school self-knew what was meaningful and what wasn’t. Meaningful to me is having a teacher that truly cares about me and takes the time to make learning interactive, exciting and relevant to me as a learner. While I may not have known this in so many words in middle school, my beliefs on meaningful education have not changed between then and now.

Looking at myself as a learner and teacher today, I hope to have the same impact on my students that teachers had on me in middle school. Middle school is such a crucial and awkward time physically, academically and socially so being a strong mentor for students is critical for learning to happen.