A Teenaged Teacher

Autumn Edwards

10 July 2017

A Teenaged Teacher

Volunteering for an organization was one of the requirements that I needed to
fulfill to graduate high school. My grandmother taught at a school
that had been lacking an art teacher for the past three years, and I
decided to take up the challenge of teaching the class for those
students. I chose this field because I realized that teaching was a
passion of mine. I honestly lost track of how many hours I spent in
the school. Every Wednesday after I left my own classes, I would
drive to my“job” and spend two to three hours teaching 5th-8th grade art. I did this
for an entire academic year, and most times I even stayed after
school hours to plan upcoming lessons.

My responsibilities as a teacher were pretty cut and dry. I created my
own art curriculum from scratch, vocabulary notes, Quizlet sets and
Kahoots, and wrote my own tests and quizzes. I also provided
homework, sketchbook assignments, and in-class projects to help
maintain each student’s grade levels. Along with that, I gradedeverything.
I would stay after hours and update the online grade book so that my
students would be able to track the progress of their grades. At the
end of the year, I had them take two finals: one that tested their
knowledge of the written content from the year, and one that tested
their hands-on artistic abilities.

One of the biggest things that was hanging over my head the whole time I
was volunteering was that I had to keep my lesson plans and projects
in a specific price range. Another challenge during volunteering was
that I was doing everything on my own. I wasthe art teacher, by myself. The final challenge was juggling my own
homework, the workload from volunteering, looking for an actual
part-time job and college prep work.

I think the best part about teaching my kids was seeing them grow. I am
so proud that I got to watch my kids graduate to the next grade
level, and it makes me feel even more proud to know that I was one of
the teachers who helped them get there. Teaching these art classes
has shown me that there are smaller things in life that can be
savored just as much or more than the bigger things. It also made me
realize that teaching is something that I want to pursue in life.

I believe“forward looking” means that you’re always keeping your future in mind,
and I would consider my activities just that. It’s really opened my
eyes to the joy that teaching can bring to myself and to others. In
10-20 years, I’m hoping that my goals will really make a
difference. I want to positively affect peoples’ lives with and
through my passion, and I will pursue the right paths and make the
right decisions so that such a dream will be able to come true.