Reflectiveness

            Most teachers and students find it hard to reflect because they do not want to admit that they did something wrong. Many times, it is through reflection that one can see and then improve. For me, reflecting is hard because when I reflect, I tend to dwell on mistakes or compare myself to others. It took me a while to even be able to reflect on my work. For example, I have been playing piano since I was five, and my parents sometimes recorded my recitals and it was cute to watch little Emma play her ditties on the piano. As I grew older, I got more serious and I absolutely hated watching myself on tape because I watched myself make mistakes and that is hard to do. But then, my teacher helped me realize the value of watching yourself perform because sometimes you don’t realize that you’re doing something wrong until you see yourself do it. This is very true to my playing and even now I will record myself and listen to find ways that I can improve.

            Reflection is at the heart of the teaching process because if one does not reflect, how do they expect to get better? As I said before, sometimes one doesn’t realize they’re doing something wrong until they reflect. Reflection also allows one to put themselves in the others’ shoes. Teachers can reflect on how their teaching affects their students and how they can better help the students learning, which should be the ultimate goal of the teacher.

Passion

          In 10^th grade, I was totally uninterested in U.S. history. I was taking this AP history course because I thought colleges would like the fact that I challenged myself. I never really liked history, but I had always been “good” at it – only because I could easily memorize facts. I had only known history through rote memorization of information – numbers, dates, places of important events. However, it was thanks to Ms. Askew that my perspective on history changed.         

            I still remember how much fun every class was, and how much I learned. Ms. Askew really challenged us as her students to make connections, hypothesize, and draw conclusions about what we were reading. She showed us how to analyze sources. I remember thinking she was crazy when she first told us that textbooks have bias. We delved into the reading and were able to find biases in our textbook, as well as others. We also analyzed primary sources and other literary works that had U.S. history in them. It was the first time in school that I remembered thinking that what I was reading might not necessarily be true. Ms. Askew would also ask us lots of questions and help us arrive at the answers, instead of just telling us the answer. If we couldn’t figure something out, someone would ask and she always had a long and elaborate answer. She knew so much history, it was unbelievable. She really sparked my interest in history and have enjoyed history ever since.