“The possibilities that lie in the future are infinite. When I say ‘It is our duty to remain optimists,’ this includes not only openness of the future but also that which all of us contribute to it by everything we do: we are all responsible for what the future holds in store. Thus, it is our duty, not to prophesy evil, but rather to fight for a better world.”
– Karl Popper
Since a young age, I have wanted to be a teacher, although I might not have taken the most direct route. I consider myself lucky to have sought and gained knowledge through a wide range of experience, education, and circumstances. I want to share all of this and help others cultivate their own knowledge and experience.
Around the same young age, I developed a love of history and social studies, as it gave me a deeper perspective about the world and myself. This love led to academic pursuits achieving a Bachelor’s of Arts in History from Hampden-Sydney College and a Master’s of Arts in History from UNC-Charlotte. The desire to share this knowledge with others has continued as I work towards earning a Master’s of Arts in Teaching from Hollins University.
While my teaching experience is limited at this point, I have had the opportunity to work in a wide-variety of classrooms and subjects. My student teaching experience was at Hidden Valley High School teaching 9th-grade Geography and 12th-grade Government. Additionally, I have served as a long-term substitute in Secondary Foreign Language (Latin and Introduction to Foreign Language) and Secondary Science (Biology and Ecology) classes. These experiences taught me a lot about teaching, students, and myself.
My love of social studies is based upon learning that while people can have different backgrounds and cultures, we often share a similar nature. This revelation inspired me to travel and experience cultures throughout the world. These experiences exposed me to situations and people very different myself and upbringing and endowed me with worldly knowledge. Furthermore, my study of history cultivated the idea of the promise of education, intelligence, and the potential of humans. In my opinion, human history is the story of gaining knowledge and improving human life in the process. I think the understanding of history can make a person an optimist for the future and give us hope that we can all improve the world we share. My goal as a teacher is to instill a sense of importance of knowledge and the need for perspective in being a human.
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“Only the educated are free” – Epictetus