sop draft

I remember specifically the moment I decided to become a Philosophy major. It was at the College of San Mateo where I was trying to complete the requirements for transfer to a UC system as a Computer Science major. I knew that higher education was important but I couldn’t understand my disinterest in the field of study I was in. After completing another aimless semester, I decided to take classes other than my intended major. The introduction to philosophy class taught by Professor David Danielson is one that opened my passion towards argument, logic, and learning. It was there and then, after I finished analyzing the second chapter of Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, that I realized that this was it. This passion and drive for learning and understanding philosophy brought me to change my major and end up as a student at the Philosophy department at UCI.

While Philosophy is in itself an interesting subject, a huge part of my passion was brought about by the amazingly inspiring teachers I’ve had in my life. This extends from the brilliant professors I’ve had at UCI and other colleges, to the amazing and caring teachers I’ve had at the K-12 level. Of course, there are also the other teachers who weren’t as creative and inspiring but nevertheless, allowed for me to assess and compare which helped me to learn better. I believe that it was in trying to understand the differences of teachers and teaching styles that that led me to taking education classes at UCI, as well as volunteering for programs like Humanities Out There, the Shalimar Teen Center, and substitute teaching.

The classes I took at the Education Department at UCI for my education minor were fantastic as they allowed for understanding of different problems of education and differing sides to how to teach. The first class I took with Professor Thurston Domina allowed me to see education as more than just teacher and student interaction. It allowed me to realize that other factors like socio-economic inequality, environment, and politics differ heavily from one school to the next. Professor Valerie Hall helped me to understand the difference between information getting and actual understanding when it comes to teaching students by providing different ideas and elements one can use in an actual class setting.

Trying to understanding education theory via the psychological, sociological, biological, and philosophical is vastly important but I believe it is important also to have the experience of being an observer as well as a guide in learning how to teach. My experiences as a substitute teacher in the public school are important as they allow me to observe classroom behavior and my affect on students. I do recognize, though, that being a substitute teacher is only a tiny glimpse of what actual teaching is like but being in a classroom as a guide is a much more real than it is discussing about it in theory. The experiences help me to become more comfortable in the classroom setting, but I feel I still need to learn more before I fully dive into teaching.

The MAT program at UCI is the best choice for me as I know for certain that the faculty in the Education Department are amazingly brilliant and also have a passion for their specific studies. I am also very interested in the public schools in the Orange County area, specifically in disparity of wealth between districts and schools as well as the effects of budget cuts. I want to do research to observe the differences between the public schools in the Orange County area and to perhaps contribute to world of education. However, I realize that I don’t have parameter or guidance as to what I am doing and I believe I would be able to fine tune the research with the help of the brilliant minds at UCI. I want to make a difference, but in order to do so properly, I feel it is imperative that I prepare myself properly and be able to learn as much as I can first. I don’t know if I am cut out to be a teacher, but I am defiantly willing to put myself out there to learn and to experience.

A subject turned observer. Rather, a subject-observer-interacter. That is what I want to become. My formal education, beginning with Kindergarten to when I walked on stage to graduate with a B.A. in Philosophy and minor in Educational Studies this past Fall, has led me to realize that I’ve only been a subject of education. That is, I’ve been taught to, but I have never before really taught others nor have I observed the process of teaching formally. My parents and teachers continually reminded me that education has importance and value and I wonder how far I would have gotten in my educational career had it not been for that realization. I wonder at times how students who aren’t blessed with wonderful parents like mine and equally devoted teachers come to that realization. Perhaps they don’t. One can't do anything about a student's familial situation, but one does have the opportunity to affect these same students in school and to impart in them the joy and rewards of learning. I, however, don't see education as a "banking system" as Paolo Frier advocates against in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I don't believe that teachers are sole retainers of information and that students are just merely waiting to be filled with information. Rather, students need to learn how to learn with what information they are given with teachers as guides. This takes as much discipline from the students as well as the teacher. Why do I want to get into the MAT program? I believe that the MAT program would help me to become a better guide versus being either a disciplinarian or a mere repository of information. I want to also be able to understand the structures and ideas behind modern educational theories and formulate my own based on the theories.