I’ve always been someone who wanted to teach. When I was 13 I started giving piano lessons to the young kids at my church. When I was 14 I started going to elementary schools with my mom and teaching kids how to take care of their school gardens. When I was 16 I started tutoring peers in my classes who were struggling with coursework. Throughout my college experience, I’ve always loved classes that required peer reviews, loved helping my peers reach the quality of work they were striving for and helping them effectively convey the information that they wanted everyone else to know about.
The act of helping others realize their own goals – and sometimes helping them find new ones in the process – has always been one I have loved.
But I wasn’t always good at it. I’ve struggled with speaking my entire life. Anxiety made me unable to express my thoughts clearly to people I wasn’t comfortable with, and most situations that involved me communicating with strangers was overwhelming. There were too many things to think about, too many elements to consider, and my brain would shut down. A lot of my most awkward moments revolve around this struggle of thinking and speaking clearly, and it’s something I’ve been working to improve since I first entered high school.
My efforts to become a better speaker and teacher have been a defining part of my journey of making the uncomfortable comfortable. I've pushed myself in college to be social and proactive, to make mistakes in order to grow from them. In a year and a half, I've made great progress. I no longer freeze up, nor do I stammer when a professor asks a question. These days I speak up, I reach out, I ask questions. Like a once-rusty coil, I’m becoming spry.
Honors 397 felt like the right way to continue my journey. Being a peer educator is an opportunity that is allowing me to grow both as a teacher and a speaker. It’s challenging me, but also revealing how far I've already come. I worried at the start of the quarter whether I would regret becoming a peer educator, if I was really suitable for it. But I’m not worried about that anymore. The experiences I had in my working group this quarter only made me more confident and excited to teach next fall. The midterm Mini Teach was especially a moment where I felt pride and confidence. The accompanying slides to this reflection are from that teach, representative of a moment that embodied how long my journey has been and how far I’ve come.
I no longer am worried about teaching next fall. Instead, I'm excited. I'm ready for this next challenge, for this next step in my long journey of growth.
Комментарии