My Intellectual History

Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more
William Cowper

    I was raised in a secure home, rich with emphasis on learning and supportive of educational institutions. My father was a teacher, then an administrator in a large public school system. Very early, I knew what board meetings were and understood his frustration with educational politics. We spent summers living in university housing while he improved his educational credentials.
 
    I was an average student, reserved and introverted. I lived in the labyrinth of an active imagination, read voraciously, and recorded volumes of thought and theory in diaries and notebooks. Learning, to me, was a natural progression from curiosity, through research, to knowledge. The most vivid memory of high school, academically, was winning a contest to write the longest grammatically correct sentence-mine was 294 words long. It was one of the rare moments when I felt exceptional.
 
     I passed through an uneventful public education and went on, unsurprised, to attain an Associate's Degree from New Mexico Junior College, major - none. I drifted through classes and excelled only in Creative Writing. I remember the glowing words of a professor and the feeling that I had “found” my passion. I never entertained the idea of teaching as a vocation. Late nights, paper grading, and dealing with irrational parents were not in my plans.
 
    Then, fifteen years passed in a frenzy of marital activity - moving eleven times, having three children, working at a variety of jobs (secretary, fast-food cook, Emergency Medical Technician, artist, substitute teacher.) When I was thirty-three, my father suggested I drive one hundred miles to the nearest university and continue my education. The idea, dismissed at first, began to grow and appeal. I began the three-year, many mile odyssey to a Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education in 1990, bestowed by Western New Mexico University. Attending as a mature adult, I realized that I was much more serious about learning than I had been at eighteen, and that education opened worlds to my mind of which I had been entirely ignorant. I thoroughly enjoyed classes.
 
    I was offered a chance to do my student teaching in my own classroom, the previous teacher having resigned and moved from the area. Even though the school could not legally pay me, I seized the opportunity.. The Animas fourth graders and I learned together what made a community of a classroom. Because I had raised three children to adolescence, I had acquired valuable knowledge of discipline, mind-manipulation (mine the subject of that process,) and child psychology. Armed with real-life experience, I soon realized that public education often had little to do with real-life. The system of school revolved around the solar center of test results. I was officially hired, and the race was on.
 
    I never bought in to the traditional approach. I was unorthodox, innovative, and tried things that raised eyebrows, especially if they worked. I used relatively radical methods like cooperative groups, individual assessment, and project based learning. I was the renegade who never wanted her students pulled out for reading, for resource room, for anything. I wanted warm bodies, captive in my classroom, and I made sure they learned, by whatever method, however long, no matter what it took. I loved teaching.
 
    Over the next twelve years, I moved possessions three times, but not grade levels. I took over or instituted the school Science Fair, the Spelling Bee, the New Mexico Celebration, Astronomy Night, Famous Person Day, and dozens of annual traditions. I entered my students in contests and national competitions. We built educational web sites and won awards. We accepted and wore T-shirts for problem-solving competitions. We did shuttle simulations with NASA and watched the stars with professional astronomers. We were fearless pioneers. I involved parents and community members in what I considered the most exciting endeavor in the world.
 
    During this time, I took correspondence classes, attended college, and went to workshops about education. I became an avid learner. I collected books, dug through research, formulated theories, and became a scientist in the classroom. I documented what worked, dissected what didn’t. My goals as a teacher evolved into three things; teach students how to learn on their own, train them to be more human, and build their sense of responsibility and choice.
 
    I accumulated enough hours by 1995 to earn a Master's Degree from WNMU in Secondary Education Language Arts. I kept taking classes until I had the forty-five hours to put me in the top bracket of my school's pay system.
 
    I received considerable training in technology and began implementing it as part of my curriculum. I also began spending Saturdays traveling within the region, offering computer training and technology integration ideas to teachers. I developed and shared curriculum with dozens of educators. I worked for the Bootheel Consortium and for Regional Educational Technology Assistance, out of New Mexico State University. I spent a year driving one hundred miles to Silver City to teach one night a week for WNMU. Even though I had already spent eight hours in a classroom those days, I was stimulated and delighted by the input of other educators. I taught a graduate course, Integrating Technology into the Curriculum.
 
    I presented my ideas at the State Learning Conference and made a presentation before the State Legislative Educational Committee about the need for technology training. I used my lunch hours to guest teach in our middle school, showing teachers interactive curriculum. I traveled seventy miles to a Deming middle school and taught a class I had never met, demonstrating to observing teachers that anyone can efficiently integrate technology into a lesson. Gradually, I recognized a passion, steadily building in me, for teaching adults involved in public education. I also realized that I could never learn enough, and that I wanted to pursue professional betterment. I began planning for a Doctorate degree, to facilitate my dream of teaching educators to meet the challenges of our changing world.
 
    After twelve years in fourth grade, I was moved to the high school. Last year, I was the media specialist in the library and facilitated distance education via satellite. I now teach English, journalism, and all the technology classes, facilitate online and distance education classes, and sponsor the Yearbook and Business Professionals of America. Again, I find myself learning a new game. It is very different in secondary education. Motivational issues, instructional technique, and classroom management are skills that shift and morph daily! I am devastated when I deal with students who were enthusiastic and willing in fourth grade, but are resentful and nonproductive as seniors. There are some students from whom I got better work as fourth graders. I am trying to adapt and to “keep the faith.”
 
    I believe that I have much to offer and much to learn. I have taught more than fifty classes to teachers and, in every class, I learned something. I want to continue learning and putting into practice what I know. I am committed to bettering public education. I want to express my experience and theories in writing, make others question and examine what we all take for granted, allow others to test my experiences with their own. I am committed to the role that technology can play in education at all age levels. For these purposes, I intend to better myself professionally by earning a Doctorate Degree.