I am excited to embark on the learning adventure of pursuing my master’s degree and hope that my studies will enhance my craft and improve my skills as an educator.

Teaching high school students has become more complex and challenging in the 21st century. With the implementation of the Common Core and teaching the mastery of standards rather than simply “covering” curriculum, educators must evolve and transform. I am excited to embark on the learning adventure of pursuing my master’s degree and hope that my studies will enhance my craft and improve my skills as an educator. I have become a lifelong learner and am setting an example for my students that even a veteran teacher in her 5th decade of life can remain teachable.

My journey to becoming a teacher started when I dropped out of high school over 30 years ago. I had been considered gifted and talented in elementary school but as a teenager became disenchanted with school and distracted by family and personal problems. The American dream of higher education seemed a distant and foreign concept to me. My mother was a single parent in survival mode during my teenage years, struggling to support two children on little more than minimum wage. She was incapable of providing the guidance and support that I needed in order to recognize that the only way up and out of poverty was through education.

My teachers took little interest in me through high school because I was neither a trouble maker nor a stellar student. I inched my way out of school by first transitioning to continuation school, which offered little learning through dry and monotonous independent study packets. I was then drawn further away from education through the enticement of a minimum wage job. I realize today that my disappearance from the education system went virtually unnoticed by the adults in my school. Several years later, through a series of events, I enrolled in community college and later graduated from university. I promised myself when I completed my teaching credential program, that I would never allow a student under my watch to slip through the cracks, as I had.

A teacher must, without a doubt, be a subject matter expert; however, much of the expertise in becoming a true professional educator comes from a willingness to be teachable ourselves. The most important factor of the teacher as a professional must be on human qualities and the ability to relate successfully to students in order to open their minds so that they are willing and able to master the subject matter material. Being a teacher takes dedication, commitment, and enthusiasm. In this, my 18th year of teaching, I still wake up every morning eager to embark on a new teaching and learning experience with my students. As an experienced teacher, it is vital that I continue to engage in professional growth to stay abreast of new developments in education. By pursing my master’s degree through the California State University, San Marcos School of Education, I hope to continue to grow both personally and professionally.