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Educational Autobiography
Lillian Dew
Ivy Tech Community College

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INTASC Standard Description and Rationale
Standard #1: Learner Development
The teacher understands how learners grow and develop, recognizing that patterns of learning and
development vary individually within and across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and
physical areas, and designs and implements developmentally appropriate and challenging learning
experiences.

Name of Artifact: Educational Autobiography

Date: September 2, 2014
Course: Education 101

Brief Description: For this assignment, I have explained how certain elements around me have
influenced my education and the future endeavors I plan to pursue. I explain how these factors in my
life are the reasons that I am who I am today. I have had my teachers, my family and even my
neighbors that have influenced who I have become and who I want to be, they helped me discover
these parts of my life.

Rationale: I chose Standard #1, because I feel as though it displays how a learner grows throughout
their education. This paper displays how one may learn versus how an other may learn, just like what
Standard #1 is describing. Standard #1 describes how some people development certain skills better
and/or faster than others and I think this paper is helping the writer explain what they have developed.

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Educational Autobiography
Introduction
Children are very influential. When a teenager is around someone that is younger, the younger
child usually wants to do exactly as the teenager does. If a teenager is dressing a certain way, the child
wants to dress that way, if a teenager wants cotton candy, the child is going to want cotton candy too.
Children look up to those around them. Those who are older than them but still relatable, therefore,
they are influencing them. I grew up in Fishers, Indiana and then moved to Noblesville, Indiana in 5th
grade. I grew up with divorced parents. Family, neighborhoods, teachers and race influence how
someone may learn and even who they will become.
Family
An average family usually consists of a mother, father, and one or two siblings. In my family, it
was always my mom, my dad and me, I had no brothers or sisters. The closest person I had to a sister
was my cousin. I had always been close with my grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins. Our
family is small. When I was about eight years old, my parents got a divorce. Eventually, they remarried
and I had a stepdad and stepmom, through my stepdad I got two stepbrothers, and a stepsister and two
nieces. All of a sudden I had this huge family. I didn't see my step-siblings often, so they didn't
influence my education. I had lived with my mom and stepdad when my parents got divorced. My
mom wasn't very adamant about me doing my work like she should have and I, also, should have taken
the initiative. My family supported my education and wanted to help me in anyway that they could, but
really it was up to me how I did in school, how my education went. A really big benefactor can be
where you grow up as well, the neighborhood you live in.
Neighborhood
Before my parents got divorced I lived in a little neighborhood in Fishers, I had a small three
bedroom, two bathroom house. I had a best friend right down the street. When my parents got divorced

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I moved to Noblesville in the middle of 5 grade, so I had no friends and mostly focused on school. I
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got straight A's, but first semester at Noblesville. It may have been the school, but I think it was also
the community. I didn't have friends to hang out with me so I focused on school and had all this time to
do my homework. I grew up in a nicer neighborhood, nothing fancy but enough to be in a good area. I
think that sometimes it depends on the student, but also it depends where you live, because where you
leave decides where you go to school. The school one attends really helps someone with their
schoolings. But within my neighborhood, they really made me realize that I wanted to become a
teacher. I babysat my neighbors kids and I just grew to absolutely love them. A lot of these kids, I have
known since birth, and I realized that I wanted to work with younger kids as a teacher. I wanted to
grow with children. I wanted to influence my students just like my teachers did with me.
Teachers
Going to school, I never had a teacher that made me realize I wanted to be a teacher, I really
realized that on my own. But I had many teachers really help me with school and make school
enjoyable for me. My third grade teacher made me enjoy school and excited to go there, she made me
feel accepted and showed me how you can be a friend to your students, but still have an authority over
them. An other teacher was my 7 grade teacher, she had took an interest in my school, because I wasn't
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very good at math, but she was very detailed when it came to explaining things and she was very
hands-on. It was so helpful and refreshing to have a teacher like that. Lastly, race is something that has
influenced people for many years in school.
Race
Race is no longer as big of a deal as it used to be in education. Growing up as a white female, I
clearly had a lot going for me in the eyes of some, but is that necessarily fair? All of us should be equal,
one person shouldn't have an advantage over an other due to race or gender. In school, minorities may
be treated differently and depending how they are treated, their school work reflects that. In education,

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almost all my teachers have been white females, I have actually never had a teacher of an other
ethnicity unless they were a substitute. I have had a few white male teachers, throughout my
educational career, but mostly they have all been female.
Conclusion
Through out my educational career I have had many influences; family, neighborhood, teachers
and race. It was never just me, it was all different things in my life that helped me realize what I wanted
to become and how I wanted to go about it. I really figured out on my own, that I wanted to become a
teacher, no one helped me realize that would be the best option for me.