Practice Blog Post

Outline
A. Who am I?
1. Where I'm from
2. Why I'm at USA
3. Personal/family info
4. Interests
B. Why do I want to be an educator?
1. I like helping people
2. I like being around kids
C. What does an educator do?
1. Teaches lifelong skills
2. Takes on many different roles in students' lives
3. Uses different resources to teach
D. What are my passions?
1. Dance
2. Travel
3. Spending time with family and friends


Practice Post

     My name is Laura Andrews. I'm a junior here at South Alabama. I was raised in Robertsdale, AL (about 20 miles north of Gulf Shores) and lived there all my life until I moved to Mobile for school. I chose to come to South because some of my friends at the time were coming to school here as well. About 3 months into our first semester, those friends and I had drifted apart, but I'm happy about my decision and have had a great experience here as far as my professors and classes goes.
     I'm my mother's only child, but my father has two boys that are 11 and 20 years older than me. My parents are now divorced and my dad lives several hours away leaving me with a lot of spare time with my mom's side of the family. I have two older cousins and three younger cousins that are more like siblings to me. I am also a godmother to the youngest of my cousins. My family lives within five minutes of each other, so you can imagine how often we're forced to see each other! Luckily we all get along very well. I don't take for granted the time we're able to spend together. There are a lot of things I'm interested in, but none of them take any importance over another. The things I'll talk about in my passions probably also double as interests, and they include dancing, traveling, and spending a lot of time with my friends and family. I mostly just really enjoy learning about anything and everything, and I always like to participate in things just for the experience or fun of it. Other interests include things involving the stars and planets (outer space is incredibly cool) and any sport, especially if the University of Alabama is involved!
I knew I wanted to be an educator a long time ago when I would play in my room teaching lessons to my stuffed animals and baby dolls after I got home from preschool, later in life I found my friend's mother is a teacher and we would play in her classroom after elementary school, and then when I got a older I was actually able to tutor younger students in classes below me. As I got older, however, I realized teachers' salaries aren't that substantial and they sometimes have trouble getting hired which scared me, so I came to South majoring in nursing. As a nurse I would be helping people and I knew that I could work with peds or in the NICU so that I could still be around children. I took the freshman seminar nursing class and realized about a month later that nursing definitely wasn't for me. I couldn't even look at a needle without feeling nauseas! So I decided to get over my fears and change my major to elementary education, and I believe it was my best decision in a long time.
     Educators have many different jobs to perform each day. Not only are they teaching on different subjects in the curriculum, but they also teach lifelong skills to their students. We spend a large portion of our life in schools, and I know I can say a lot of the things I've learned came from a teacher, not just my mother. With that being said, teachers have to take on many roles. Although it is not an educator's job to raise a child, they definitely are parent-figures in a lot of children's lives. In addition to that, teachers are mentors and even friends in some cases. Teachers also have to be learners. Even after we graduate, there will be new techniques and technology to learn about. Teachers have to utilize any resources available to keep students engaged and excited to come to school.
My passions are things that I'm not necessarily good at, or do a lot, but things that I love doing when I can or wishing I could do it! They include helping people and being around children first and foremost. I think children are the most entertaining people and you can learn so much from spending a little time with them. Other than that though, I love dancing. I danced in a studio for 13 years, and never was very good at it, but loved having it as an outlet to release some stress or express myself. I also love the idea of traveling. I haven't been to too many places yet, but my list is growing as well as my wish list! Lastly, as I said before I love spending time with my family and friends. This is especially true for my cousins because being a part of the little ones' lives is really important to me.

Photo sources: k.b. danz and my phone, taken by my mother