I Profess

Student Learning Outcome: 1- Sense of Purpose

Description of Artifact: This essay was written to define your purpose in professing what you will do as a being and as an educator. In this essay, I touched on always creating a classroom space where students feel welcomed and professing to always have an open heart and listening ears for my students.

Artifact Alignment: Being able to identify what you profess in your life and career allows you to define what your sense of purpose and being is. If I can proudly declare and announce what values and beliefs I will hold in my classroom, then I have found the purpose of education.

Future Goal: In my future classroom and with the growth I hope to gain from there, I hope to formulate arguments for ethical decision making for my teaching and my students. I hope to solidify the morals, values, and theological principles within my own teaching so that my students can understand empathy, respect, and equality inside and outside the classroom.

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I feel as though we are asked this question often. The question of “what is most important to us”. There are many things that I can name from the top of my head, like my family, my health, my opinions and voice, but at the end of the day these all fall under one large umbrella: my strength in faith. 

What does it mean to say ‘I Profess’? The dictionary defines the verb ‘to profess’ as “to declare openly; announce or affirm; avow or acknowledge” (Profess). You can profess something in terms of knowledge, thoughts, or words. When I read this definition I wondered, “what do I profess to be, do, or think about in my life? Well that's a question I had never asked myself before, but it makes sense to understand and declare openly your thoughts and opinions. 

I profess many different things based on what aspect of my life I am focusing on. In terms of education and my future as an educator, I Profess to always create a classroom space where my students' voices are heard. Oftentimes more than not, we tend to silence young children from speaking their minds and letting their voices roar. I hope to create a classroom environment where each child is heard, respected, and understood. This is something that was not taught, rather I had to learn it through my own experiences. 

Being an immigrant was the first battle I had to face in schools. Some teachers don't understand it, some couldn't get past the language or culture barrier, and some seemed as if they were trying to silence me. As I grew older, I realized that teachers were biased, and they had the right to their own opinions. “School had me navigating the pressures of belonging in the ways that are typical to adolescence –wearing the right clothing labels or having the popular school supplies, when both were a challenge to my family’s budget. As the child of immigrants, I was also struggling with not wanting to bring my friends home because it smelled different, both my parents worked, and they spoke another language. Culturally, I felt stuck in between the worlds” (Charbonneau). I felt this on a personal level, and I hope that as the future generation of elementary school teachers, we never make a single student feel like they are less than or not valued. At times, they let their opinions get the best of them and were not creating a classroom where voices can be heard. This sticks with children. If we aren't raising students to be heard and seen, we are isolating them from their full potential of making changes in the world we live in. 

Professing this value to me, means that I hold myself up to certain standards when I have a future classroom. I have to make sure that in order to live up to this profession, that I am allowing myself to speak to my students about topics and allow them to voice their opinions. Having this profession means that I have to stand with my students and not against them. I will openly talk about race, identity, religion, disabilities, everything. These things were not a part of my elementary classroom conversation, and that in turn caused me to not use my voice when I was younger. Now that I have the ability to use my voice and allow others to, I will stand by this profession. 

For myself personally, I Profess to always have an open heart. When I walk into a room of people, I want to be that warm sunshine that they feel. I want to make sure that the people in my life know that I am there for them. I thrive to give the utmost respect to all the amazing people in my life. I was taught this profession through my parents and a handful of teachers that I hold near and dear to my heart. My parents came to the United States with nothing, so they know what it feels like to have nothing and be nothing. They built their lives from the ground up, so they know what it feels like to have what they wished for. Throughout all of these phases, they always kept an open heart and mind to others around them. Being grateful and humbled made sure they had an open heart for everyone and every struggle that came their way. 

As mentioned earlier, a few of my teachers that I hold close to my heart showed me this profession. I observed their kind hearts, beautiful actions, and open minds and only wished I could be half as amazing as them. When you're around people like that, you feel safe, secure, happy, and sound and that is what I hope to be for the people around me. There are issues in our society that I want to open my heart and mind to completely. Since I have always had this open heart, open mind concept, being able to learn and advocate for societal issues hasn't been hard for me. The difficult part of this is being surrounded by people who aren't open minded and who don't have an open heart towards others. Being more aware of this, I have realized that I have to fight 10 times stronger to make sure that others are advocated for, especially those who can’t advocate for themselves. 

I Profess to live my life with religion constantly on my mind. This is the overarching umbrella to all of my other thoughts and actions. I would never force my religion on anybody, but I hope that through my actions, words, and thoughts that religion is constantly there. I hold my religion close to my heart. Although it was mildly practiced in my house growing up, I have realized the importance of my religion as I grew older. With religion, I want to make sure I include it in all other aspects of my life. With my words, I profess to always “speak kindly to others” (Quran 2:83). With my actions, I profess to always do what is right morally and ethically “surely good deeds will wipe out the bad” (Quran 11:114). With my loyalty, I hope to always speak truth to the people around me and my future students “do not mix truth with falsehood” (Quran 02:42). With my anger, I hope to always bite my tongue and be patient for “He is with the patient ones” (Quran 08:46). I profess to always integrate religion into being a good person, and make sure my values are always morally and ethically in line with what I believe. 

Resources:

Charbonneau, C. (2018, May 23). Eight Ways to Encourage Student Voice. Retrieved August 28, 2020, from https://knowledgeworks.org/resources/8-ways-encourage-student-voice/

Holy Qur’an. (A.Y. Ali, Trans. & T. Griffith, Ed.). (2001). Wordsworth. 

Profess. (2012). Retrieved August 28, 2020, from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/profess