Marcantonio

Mandi Marcantonio
Pat Woodward
Educ 275-004
8 Oct. 2013

Education Autobiography
Throughout my education career I have experienced many different types of teachers.
Some of them were fun, some of them were strict, and some of them were indifferent, but there
were a couple of them in particular who had the biggest impact on my education, and has made
me want to venture into the teaching field today. Mrs. Mayer and Mr. Tooley had the most
prevalent influence on my education, along with the schools I attended, and my cultural status all
played apart in the student and person I am today.
Mrs. Mayer was my seventh grade biology teacher, and I was at the age where science
disgusted me. All of the other girls would not dare touch anything in that class and they always
screamed at the thought of dissection. It was because of this that I was falling behind in the class
and not receiving very good grades on my labs and exams. Of course, I assumed this was
because Mrs. Mayer disliked me and wanted to fail me because I did not have a liking for
science. After a couple months of being stubborn, I finally decided to go to Mrs. Mayer for help;
to my surprise she stayed after school and helped me with my labs one on one, relieving the
pressure I felt to be like all the other girls. She made me like science and eager to try new
things! Mrs. Mayer opened my eyes up to a whole new world that I had restricted myself from
seeing, and she did it all on her own time. From this seventh grade experience, Mrs. Mayer was
the first teacher who made me realize that teachers who might come across as mean or unfair

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are usually the ones that have high expectations for their students and are willing to do whatever
it takes to help them be successful in their class. The fact that she took time to help me even
though I did not like science and that she made me like it again was what made me want to be a
teacher. I want to help kids in a subject they may not like, and get them to a point where they
can be successful and maybe enjoy something they never thought they could like.
Mrs. Mayers teaching philosophy was student-centered; she lectured very little and she
always had new, hands on activities for us to do with our table groups. I liked that we were put
into collaborative learning groups, because you were able to work through difficult questions
with your partners, which was crucial since Mrs. Mayer could not assist every group. Although,
this was what also made me dislike science because I was influenced by the peers I worked with.
Essentially, we were responsible for our own learning. If you did not do the lab, get messy and
ask questions then you would be lost and not learn anything. I now respect her teaching method
and feel that co-learning was the best environment for the material she was teaching.
The teacher who finally convinced me that I belong in a classroom was my sophomore
English teacher Mr. Tooley. At one point I thought my writing was indispensible; no one ever
criticized it and I received perfect scores on virtually every assignment submitted. Mr. Tooley
challenged that. A few weeks into the semester, and Mr. Tooley handed back my first graded
assignment, and at the top it was marked with a B! I expressed my concerns after class expecting
there to be a mistake, and Mr. Tooleys exact words to me were, Mandi, you have to earn an A
in my class. In the following weeks papers received similar grades, sometimes worse and I
realized I had one of two choices, swallow my perfectionist pride and admit I was doing
something wrong, or continue to watch my grade plummet further into the unknown. When I
met with Mr. Tooley he said he knew I was a talented writer, but he wanted to challenge my

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potential. It was from that day forward that I knew I wanted to become a teacher. Most teachers
only take the time to help the students who need it, not the kids who do well in the class. Mr.
Tooley showed me that even the kids who have a passion and are good in an area need some
assistance to maximize their potential. I then started to appreciate the fact that teachers teach to
make a difference in kids lives.
Mr. Tooleys teaching philosophy ended up being very dialogical, which was the reason I
loved his class. Every night we would have an assigned reading for his class, and the next day
we would spend the entire period discussing what we read. Mr. Tooley would probe the class
with mulit-perspective questions and provoked us to challenge our peers thinking. We always
ended up in heated discussions and it helped students better understand the reading. It also
encouraged students to do the readings because everyone wanted to be apart of the debates. It
was a combination of him challenging students to maximize their potential and his powerful
dialogical philosophy that made me want to get kids that excited about English.
I have always considered myself to be a middle class, white girl, who grew up with a stay
at home mom and a hard working dad. My younger sister and I were raised with the beliefs that
if you work hard, determination, respect for yourself and others and above all are honest, then
you will lead a successful life. We learned that life is not always fair, and if you want to be the
best then you have to work your way to the top. I would like to think that I have lived up to their
expectations and have accepted these morals into my own life with open arms, but the schools I
attended did not always have kids who had the same values. As I grew up and went on to high
school, my classrooms became more diverse and we had more forms of power in the school. We
had students and their families who were homeless, students who were kicked out of their house,
students who drove nice cars, students who made good grades, students who were good athletes

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and even students who committed suicide; and because of all of this, authority and power were
prevalent in my school. Aside from teachers we had four security guards, five principals, five
counselors and a school resource officer who were always attending to disciplinary actions and
other student needs. The general curriculum at my school was designed so every student had the
opportunity to succeed. We had students who were faced with a lot of hardships; so general
education curriculums were simplified to accommodate the majority of the student body. Our
school policies were pretty strict as well such as if you were tardy or had 7 unexcused absences
in a semester then the student would have to attend Sunday school, and the count would not start
over until the next semester. This tactic was to make sure students went to their classes and were
not as susceptible to ditching to go cause trouble.
While our school was diverse, it was not really noticed amongst the students. Our social
status was not a typical topic of choice, we were all a pretty tight knit group of students who all
grew up in the same area and attended the some of the same schools. There was one Hispanic
student whose family was poor and was living out of a barn. The student and his family made
breakfast burritos every night and the student got permission from the administration to sell the
burritos to the student body in the mornings for $3 a piece. This money was his familys income.
It was cultural experiences like these that made me more sensitive to diversity and made me want
to help. My diverse education career has lead me toward the path I want to take as a teacher, and
I currently work at a underprivileged public elementary school with very culturally diverse
preschoolers and I love it!
My schooling career has definitely shaped me into the person I am today and the teacher I
will be in the future. It is because of amazing teachers, diverse classrooms, and the morals and
values I am instilled with that will help me be the understanding, patient, diverse teacher that I strive
to be.