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ABE Education

Signature Assignment

By Keith Holder

May 8th 2019

Educational Background

I went to school in Kuna K-12. I went to school with the same group of kids through

the five different schools that Kuna had at the time. I feel that this is unique since Kuna,

as well as many other districts, have changed so much since that time. I felt that I had a

very structured and stable school life growing up. That’s not to say that now you can’t be

successful, but I feel that being able to become so comfortable with all of my peers and

teachers made it a better environment to learn in. I have brought that point up in a lot of

my other discussion board posts as well. The educational experience in my childhood has

had the most impact on how I identify with school now as an adult. I have a very positive

view of school and have many of the same friends today that I had then because I knew

everyone. It was a family environment and that’s why I still feel such a connection with

that district today. That has been the biggest motivating factor in my decision to become

a teacher. Growing up in that way made me want to become a part of it as an adult. I had

so many positive teachers that helped me along the way and shaped who I am today. Not

just on an academic level either, but I will get into that a little later. My current level of

education is second semester of college at CWI. I am currently pursuing an associates

degree in secondary education.

Many teachers that I had growing up had a huge impact on me. I had an

economics teacher that taught me a lot about not giving up. He had an incident at school

where his emotions almost cost him his job. He had an altercation with a student at a

basketball practice and got into trouble. If you heard the story from both sides, the

student’s and the teacher’s you can see how it happened. Him losing his temper was and

never will be ok, but he really made up for it and made up with the student. No one
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thought that it would be possible for that to happen, but he is still a teacher out there to

this day. I feel that he taught me a little about humility and how to learn from your

mistakes. We may never be perfect as educators, but we need to try and learn all the time.

I also had a math teacher that taught me a lot about passion and patience. I have never

been good and math but have always tried to put in the effort. One particular teacher that

I had in high school was willing to stay hours after school to help any students that

needed help. She helped me for three of the four years that I was in high school so much.

I ended up passing all of the math classes that I needed to graduate because of all of her

help. I would go in for up to three hours a day and it never phased her. I thought that it

was amazing looking back that she loved what she did enough to do that day in and day

out. She taught me passion for what you do is important. She may not have been able to

help me understand what she was teaching in class but outside of class she was willing to

put in the time to figure out what I was struggling with. The patience she showed was

only possible because she believed in what she was doing. Sometimes we may not feel

like putting in the extra time to help someone, but if we truly have a passion for what we

do we will make time. I’ve never met a teacher with so much passion and patience. That

is something that I will definitely take into my career as a teacher. I want my students to

know how much I care. Patience is a choice, and if you choose to be a teacher, you need

to do it for the right reasons. Mrs. Rahre was a shining example of this for me. She was a

very special person to me and I appreciate all she did for my education. When we wrote

letters in high school to the teacher that we felt had made the most difference in our life I

wrote to her. I still keep in touch with her to this day even though she recently retired.

She is a special woman.

Work History, Service and/or Extracurricular Activities

I currently work as an associate at Harbor Freight Tools. I have learned to deal with

many different types of customers since I have been there. Some good and some bad, but

I feel that they have all made me grow in some way. I have been there almost four years.

I had worked at Sears before then in a leadership role. The biggest thing that I learned at

Sears was communication. When something wasn’t going right, I had to learn to seek

help from others. I didn’t display much patience with this at first and it was hard to

overcome for a while. The grind of having to go through this as a leader was exhausting

at times and I wasn’t sure it was something that was for me. Either way I did learn a great

deal about the importance of communication while I was there. When I moved to Harbor

Freight, I had decided beforehand that I didn’t want to be in leadership role there and that

I wanted to go back to school. Through all my experiences, I realized that none of these

jobs were going to make me happy. I have learned to respect and value having a

demanding job that doesn’t pay well. Learning to lean on my peers and deal with tough

circumstances has taught me a lot and has made me grow as a person. It also helped me

to realize that school is something that I value. If I didn’t go through all of these ups and

downs, I don’t think that I would value the path that I am on now as much. The bad

experiences that I have had have made me a better person. I have learned that in order to

get what I want I must be willing to work for it.

I also play softball as a hobby outside of work and school as a hobby. It is very

fun and I have learned to have a brotherly bond with all of my teammates. Granted

softball isn’t something that is to serious, but it has helped me in being able to form

friendships with a wide variety of people and I find it very fun to participate.
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I plan on taking all of my professional and personal experiences and using them in

the teaching field in order to better teach kids. I hope to be able to relate to a wide variety

of students and better understand where they come from. I feel that I am finally chasing

after a goal that I want. I can’t wait to become a teacher and look forward to making a

difference. Over the last ten years since high school, I have gotten married, had two kids,

and have had a lot of other personal things happen. I am stronger now and I will succeed.

I look forward to the rest of my academic career and look forward to making it happen.

Ethical Reasoning In Education

One of the most common ethical dilemmas that I saw in school was kids’ personal

appearances. There were certain students that came to school with no lunch or lunch

money, they were poorly dressed, or didn’t have a coat on a cold day. They sometimes

would smell or look very dirty. I had a few teachers that noticed things like this and did

not hesitate to report it so the students could get help. A lot of times those types of

teachers were the ones that weren’t approachable and didn’t have much of a personal

relationship with any of the students. Now when looking at how we are taught to handle

situations like this as teachers, they were doing it right. Even though we might want to let

our biased opinions on the situation show through, we aren’t supposed to. Meaning that

our fear that it will cause them problems at home can’t stop us from reporting what we

see or hear.

The other thing that I saw a lot of was students who were using drugs or alcohol.

This was mostly when I was in high school. Some teachers would over hear other

students talking about drinking, or they would hear rumors of certain students using
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drugs. From what I learned from the reading, we are obligated as teachers to report

anything of this nature immediately. For the most part in situations like this all the

teachers that I had did. This seems to be a situation that does play so much on emotion

rather than just reaction to help the student. I think that teachers see this as more of a

personal choice than a problem at home.

There are pros and cons to dealing with these ethical dilemmas. The second

scenario that I talked about is more cut and dry. I think that you just should report it

ninety percent of the time. The first one that I talked about seems to be more of an ethical

dilemma. Knowing that a kid’s appearance is bad because of his parents can be a double-

edged sword. You may have met the parents and can tell that they are negligent or may

be mean to the child at home. Even though you haven’t seen any signs of abuse, it could

be something that plays into your decision to report something like that or not. You may

not want to report situations like this out of fear that it may cause the student more

problems at home with their parents. We learned in one of the videos that we watched

that we can’t let situations like that effect how we handle each situation. We are obligated

to report any and all incidents regardless of how we feel it will go at home. While I tend

to think that this isn’t a good thing, it may be the only way to make sure that we as

teachers are protected. I know that I won/t risk my job by not reporting something that I

am required to do. Teachers that tend to have more intimate relationships with students

tend to understand why they look a certain way. If a teacher takes the time to know a

student that has this appearance, they may know why they look the way that they do. The

student may tell the teacher that they don’t want to report anything to higher ups. As a

teacher, I feel that this is the way that you could run into problems. You know why the
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student’s appearance is bad. You also know the situation at home. But because you have

a fondness for this student, you aren’t going to say anything. As a teacher I feel that you

have to make a judgment call in this situation. This isn’t what we are taught though. We

are taught to keep a professional distance relationship wise and we are supposed to report

thing no matter what. What if it won’t help? What if it makes the situation worse?

Unfortunately, the only way to avoid this at times is to have the simple theory that you

have to be black and white on these issues. If there is something to report than report it. I

hope to learn more in my education classes about how to handle situations like this. I

wish that there were other routes to take in dilemmas like this. But for the time being, I

would stick to the theory that every situation is the same and needs to be treated the same.

Neglect of a child is neglect. Even if it means that the student will be upset with you, it is

your job to report it.

Considerations For Choosing Education As A Career

I should be a teacher because I love school. I love everything from the social part

of interacting with peers and teachers, to the classroom environments. I value everything

that school taught me, not just academically, but personally and socially. I look forward

to coming to college after I get off work. It is something that I want to do, not something

that I have to do. I love classes that are in person because I feel that I learn just as much

from other students as I do from the professors. I wish that I could have had this class in

person so that I could have had that experience with the teacher and the students.

However, this being my first online class, I learned how to process feedback from my

teacher online and had a good line of open communication thoroughout the semester, so I

did learn how to make online classes work. I feel as though when I enter the educational
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field, I will be going to do something I want to do,co not just a job. If I can give someone

else a positive experience in school, I want to do that. I believe that my enthusiasm for

school and getting to know other people and how to reach them will serve me well as a

teacher. My ability to work collaboratively with others is a skill that I feel will help me in

the field of education. I also feel that I am good at teaching a concept in a variety of

different ways that different types of learners can understand. Also, while not a skill, my

love for school and the environment is useful. If you believe in what you do you are more

likely to be successful.

If I were to be in the education field as something other than a teacher, I feel that I

would like to be a principal. I would still be in the environment that I love and be able to

interact with teachers and help them grow. It would be a challenge to be able to work

with them to create an environment in a school as a team that is successful. Going from

concentrating on me and my class to a whole school would be something that would be

both challenging and rewarding. I think that you can learn to take skills that you have as a

teacher and learn to apply them being a principal. It also seems like a natural transition

for one to start out being a teacher and become a principal later. I had more than one

teacher that ended up being a principal in my district by the time I had graduated from

high school.

Another skill that I am good at that would be better suited for another career

would be mechanical work. I am a very good auto mechanic and I enjoy it and have a lot

of tools. When I tell people that I am going to school to be a teacher they are surprised.

They think that because I enjoy working on vehicles and doing physical stuff like that it

doesn’t make sense to be a teacher. I have ever understood the stereotype that views a
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teacher as a delicate person who can only succeed in a classroom. I think that good

teachers are well rounded individuals and have all kinds of other hobbies and skills

outside of work. I think that the reason for this stereotype is that sometimes we don’t

know teachers as well as we think. In school they are professional and act and dress in a

manner that is expected, but what they do outside of school may be very different. I think

that when people know the things that I like to do they think that I would be better suited

for a blue-collar job than a white-collar job. I don’t believe that people are one or the

other. I take pride in being able to work on vehicles, play sports, and have the ability to

teach children. I don’t put myself in a box and I don’t want to do that to the kids that I

teach. Nobody has boundaries, they just have to choose what makes them happy in life. I

believe that everyone is in charge of their own happiness and you have to make it happen.

That is why I am choosing to go into the educational field. That is what is going to make

me happy. That was the most important thing to me when I sat down to figure out what I

wanted to do in life. It’s simple,I am going to school to be a teacher because it will make

me happy.

Professional Goals

My long-term goals are as follows, graduate college, become a teacher, buy a

house, raise my kids, retire. That is obviously a very broad description and there is a lot

of smaller goals in between so let me explain further. I want get my bachelor’s degree in

secondary education. After getting my associates degree at CWI, I plan on transferring to

Boise State. I plan on achieving these goals by staying on track. As long as I do what is

expected of me and don’t give up, I know that my goal is achievable. I have already

worked out a work schedule that is great for school, and they know the importance that I
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place on school, so they accommodate me well that way. I have lots of support at home

and that helps as well. I want to get involved in the Kuna School District somehow before

I’m done with school. I want to work in that district as well as live there and raise my

kids there. I want to be more than just a teacher out there, I want to make my life out

there. I attended K-12 out there and want my kids to do the same thing. After I graduate

and get a job out there, I would like to buy a home out there. Then, of course, I will enjoy

the ride and think about retirement later. But I see myself wanting to work out there my

entire career.

My short-term goals over the next six months are to finish this semester with

nothing lower than a B and take the summer off. I thought about taking summer classes

but decided to take it off. I plan on recharging mentally over that time and preparing for

the fall semester in August. I already have all of my classes planned out with my advisor,

so I don’t need to worry about that. One goal that I have outside of school is to paint my

truck. I have never painted a whole vehicle before, but I think that I can figure it out. I

also want to look into Bronco Connect some more. I remember hearing about it last

semester and have wanted to explore it more. I want to make sure that I am prepared

ahead of time to transfer seamlessly to Boise State so that there is a good transition from

school to school. The purpose of me taking time off mentally during the summer is to

make sure that I keep what I’m doing in perspective. I don’t want to burn myself out and

I want to stay motivated. I feel that looking into Bronco Connect would be a good

starting point to get ready to move on to Boise State. These small goals over the next six

months will help me achieve all of my long-term goals. As long as I can follow these

goals of mine, I feel that it will all work out. Part of it will be not getting ahead of myself.
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If I do what I know I can do and not give up it will happen. I need to be patient and grind

it out. In the end all of the hard work will pay off.
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Works Cited

Ryan, K., Cooper, J. M., & Bolick, C. M. (2016). Those who can, teach. Australia:

Cengage Learning.