Practice Blog Post

What I Want My Students to Know


Outline
1. Who am I?
2. Why do I want to be an educator?
3. What does an educator do in his or her practice?
4. What are my passions?


Hello, my name is Erica Mixon, and I am a junior at South Alabama. I have lived in George County, Mississippi my whole life. Since it is only a forty-five minute drive from South, I still live there. Also, this is only my second year at South because I did two years at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and then came to South Alabama. I had originally planned on attending Mississippi State however, I was told that South's education program was very helpful for her teaching career. I am working towards a degree in Secondary English education. Basically, I will be teaching English for high school students. I've always enjoyed English and literature course.

I come from a family of six. I have a younger brother, an older brother, and an older sister. I also have two nephews. One nephew is my brother's son and the other is my sister's. My family has been in George County for generations and my siblings still live in the area. I work at a Walt Massey Automotive as a receptionist three days out of the week. I attended George County High School where I started to really consider a career in education.


It took until my senior year in school for me to decide to pursue an education degree. I had always sworn up and down that being a teacher wasn't for me. However, as the year progressed and I experienced many different teaching methods and listened to my friends, I realized that education was actually very interesting. I was drawn to the challenge it presented with the subject matter and of presenting the subject in an interesting way to students. Also, since I am very passionate about analyzing literature and the way it can influences people, I can continue to analyze and observe that by being a high school English teacher. However, it is more important for a teacher to be able to show care towards the subject and students. A teacher in this day and age should be able to incorporate the subject into something the students can see as beneficial for them. For instance, I believe English teachers should not only teach the elements, themes, and syntax of a work, but teachers should also be able to teach how literature can provide different prospectives that allow people to grow and understand others.


As for my passions, it would have to be reading and mission work. First, I love reading. The best smell in the world is the smell of a used book. The more yellow the pages are the better. If I could improve anything, it would be that I would improve my analyzing skills. I have been taking classes specifically for analyzing different form of literature, which has resulted in some improvement. My other passion is doing mission work. I went to South Africa last summer and worked in a school in Johannesburg. It was terrifying and exciting at the same time because I had never worked with that age group before. The ages were mainly seven to eleven year olds, so I was able to improve on my interaction skills with younger children. I hope to keep going on these trips so I can continue to meet new people and build relationships with them.