Why I Want to Pursue a Degree in Ece free essay sample

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve known what I wanted to do. I am one of those people who was blessed enough to realize my passion at an early age. As far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted to become a teacher. I can remember as a child sitting in my room, surrounded by my stuffed animals (or students, as I saw them) and forcing my younger brother to sit still and quietly do the work I assigned him.I even had two baskets which I kept on my little wooden desk; one for my â€Å"students† to turn in work, and the other for more work which needed to be graded. I spent many afternoons teaching my little brother whatever I had learned in school that day, from writing words to adding numbers. It made me feel proud when he understood what I was trying to show him, and it made me even more proud when he started school and was slightly ahead of his classmates. Where did this passion stem from? I can only account it to my mother, who has been a teacher for 25 years.So, when asked the question â€Å"Why do I want to pursue a degree in Early Childhood Education? † I am overwhelmed at the many thoughts and reasons which come to mind. My first reason is passion, plain and simple. Love for the job, for all it means and all it stands for. Another reason is for personal satisfaction. I set a goal, once upon a time, to complete my degree and become a licensed teacher. I like to complete my goals in life, and I don’t feel fully content until I have mastered what I set out to do. My last reason, and quite honestly one of the most important reasons I am pursuing my ECE degree is my family.I have a husband and a baby boy who are my entire world. I want to get this degree to provide stability and security for my family. I feel that these three reasons are the combined drive that motivates me to push for this degree, until I walk across that stage with a degree and a diploma. 3 Why do I have so much passion for teaching? It all started with the smells. Yes, I said the smells. I love the smell of a classroom†¦it smells like crayons and sharpened pencils. As I mentioned before, my mother was a teacher.I remember going to work with her on â€Å"Take your daughter to work day† and immediately inhaling as soon as she opened the door to her room. I love that smell. So I fell in love with this scent†¦then mom put me to work! Helping put up bright and colorful bulletin boards, cutting out shapes, running to the copier to make copies.. . Oh, my mom sure knew what to do with my little helping hands. She kept me so busy, and I loved it. I looked forward to going to work with her when I could. Sometimes, she would ask me if I had any ideas for an art project! I had no idea at my young age that my mother was grooming me as a future teacher.She must’ve seen the light in my eyes and known. I have always looked up to my mother; always wanted to follow in her footsteps. She gave me all the tools and support I needed to lean towards becoming a teacher, but she never once actually said it out loud. Not until I was in 8th grade and proudly announced to her one day that I wanted to teach. I’ll never forget the small smile she gave me or the look on her face. It was a very knowing look. All she said was â€Å"If that’s what you want, sweetheart. You’d make a wonderful teacher. † I ran with it from there. As I grew my passion just grew along with me.When I got to high school I signed up to be a Peer Tutor. For one of my classes I would drive to the middle school and help tutor kids who were struggling in certain areas of their academics. This was another key moment in my love affair with teaching; seeing a child’s face light up with understanding! Hearing them say, â€Å"I get it now! † and having them show their improving grades to me with each session. It made me feel so good to be able to help, I felt like I was really giving something back. That is a feeling I can’t 4 find the words to describe. So I continued on this course, and after high chool got a part time job working with CIS (Communities In Schools) in Brunswick County. I worked there part time as an after school teacher. The program was designed to help at risk kids stay on track by connecting with resources from the community and extra academic guidance to help them learn. I loved this job and the children so much, so during the day I was attending the community college to try and start pursuing my goal. In early 2006 I was knocked off track. My little brother was killed in a car accident at the age of 17. My world went pretty dark for a while, and I dropped out of college and left my jobs.After a few months of deep grieving, I got on my feet and got a job making more money as a receptionist for a window company. I pushed my passion to the back of my brain and put the money first. I was all determined to have a â€Å"grown up job† and be on my own. This meant I couldn’t afford classes, or books. I also had to have a full time day job to afford my rent. Teaching went to the back burner for several years. I was offered higher positions at my job, and pretty soon found myself sitting in the office behind the desk from which I myself was hired. I hated it. I could sit on the computer all day long and do nothing.Most people would’ve loved my job. But I could not handle it. That’s when it hit me again- I belong in a classroom. I missed the kids, the noise, the movement! I quit that job, pulled myself together and got my Substitute Teacher certification. I began subbing in all four elementary schools of Brunswick County. This was hard, waking up not knowing if I had to work or not that day, and the lack of schedule was really affecting me. So I signed on to be a sub at Child Development Center, a special needs pre-school. I worked there as a sub for 3 months and was then hired as an Assistant.Now, 5 years later I am still there, teaching three and four 5 year olds. Living my passion! Still my goal has yet to be met. I need to graduate. I still have a long way to go but I am on the right path to get there. Personal satisfaction alone may not sound like a great reason in itself to pursue anything, but without the drive for personal satisfaction I think that many famous people would never be where they are today. When I set a goal for myself, I always intend to complete it.It may not be in the exact time frame as I planned, but I never let the finish line stray too far out of my sight. I had a teacher here at Mount Olive who had each student make a goal book. We had to put pictures in it, to help us envision each goal we set, then we had to write it out as a fact. In my goal book, it said â€Å"I will be a teacher with my B-K licensure within five years. † That was one year ago, so I better keep going! I have always had a strong willed personality, I want to push myself. Having my degree in ECE is something I have wanted for such a long time now that I can’t imagine giving up and never getting where I planned to be. It would be pretty ridiculous for me to give up, considering I’ve known what I’ve wanted all along. There are other people who are so confused, and have no idea what they want to be. They haven’t found their passion, and are out there searching for what feels right. I’ve been blessed to feel so sure all along, it would just be insulting if I wasted that gift of knowing and didn’t do anything about it. For this reason I continue to push. For this reason I stay up all hours of the night writing this paper, despite having to rise at 5:30 in the morning. I do it because I want it. It means so much to me.And that is a very important reason. 6 Speaking of goals, another goal I had set for myself was a family one. Well, it was more of a timeline. I always knew I wanted to start a family when I was around 25 years old. If it happened, it did and if I wasn’t in the position then I would’ve been okay I suppose. When I was 23 my boyfriend of six years proposed. I said yes and we were married a year later. We immediately started trying for a family, and when I say immediately I mean, honeymoon. Well, it worked. Nine months after our wedding we were blessed with our son, Brantley, who was named after my brother.So here it is, reason number three for pursuing my degree: My family. My husband is a police officer. Much like a teacher, he is over worked and under paid. It takes two salaries to balance our household financially. I want to finish my degree so that I can get a job that will provide a more comfortable income for our family. I know teaching will never make me a rich woman monetarily, but having the licensure will open up doors to higher paying teacher positions. My husband and I also want more children, and with the raised cost of living we just know that until I graduate we can’t afford more than one child.It hurts our hearts to put a financial limit on our family size, but we are responsible and would never want to bring a child into this world knowing that we cannot provide absolutely everything we want for them. So I continue to study and work, because I want Brantley to have everything he needs. I also appreciate the schedule that teaching allows. Knowing that as a teacher I will have every holiday off to spend with my family means more to me than any amount of paycheck. Also, the quality one on one time I get with my son during those lazy days of summer vacation are priceless†¦I would not trade them for all the money in the world.Having the opportunity to be with my son and watch him grow and learn is what makes my life beautiful. We are blessed that as an officer, 7 my husband is able to work day shift and gets home by six in the evening. As a teacher, I am able to be home, and have dinner on the table for my family by that time. There is no better work schedule than that of a teacher. It works so well into our family life. The same way it did for my parents when I was a child. I know that as Brantley grows, I will be able to work around his schedule because I will be on the same one. Quality time with my family is absolutely what I live and breathe for.I am so blessed to be given the opportunity to have a career which caters to this exact need. Being a teacher isn’t just another job to me. I feel like it is an integral part of who I am, and who I am going to become in the future. As I continue pursuing my degree in ECE, I will keep all these reasons in the forefront of my mind. There are a million good reasons why I feel I must pursue my degree, and I can’t think of one single reason alone to not chase after it. Even when I’m tired, or pressed for time, or feeling unmotivated in any way; I can close my eyes and go back to my room.And once again, I’m just a little girl, surrounded by stuffed animals and a dream. When I start to fall off track, something as simple as the scent of crayons draws my focus back to center. When I see a child’s face light up with pride from learning something new, it renews me completely. The sound of children playing and their laughter is my favorite music. A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove . . . but the world maybe different because I was important in the life of a child. –Kathy Davis