Revisions done by: Dillon Dwyer and Alison Thyen

Thyen 1
Kendra Thyen
Dr. Tim Fiegen
4/13/15
EDFN 338
To Be or Not To Be
Every child has dreams, dreams to be a doctor, an astronaut, a singer, or many other
wonderful occupation However, some of these dreams, like being, an astronaut or singer, may
fade away as children enter middle school. For other children, they hold onto their dreams and
decide to pursue them as early as middle school or the start of high school. I consider these
people, the lucky ones. I see these people every day as I walk around Dakota State University
(DSU). They know who they are and what they desire to be. I see the excitement they have for
graduation and entering the work force. I see how much love they will have for their careers
because they have been called to be teachers, accountants, game designers, and much more. They
know who they are, but who am I?
I remember when I was in 5th grade and my teacher was the amazing Mrs. Remmers. She
had us write letters to our future self. Mrs. Remmers told us that she would give this letter back
to us at our high school graduation. A few weeks later, one day during class she started to cry.
She told us she would be leaving. My favorite teacher leaving me and my fellow classmates who
loved her as much as I did. To this day, Mrs. Remmers and I keep in touch and talk about our
lives. She has three beautiful children and still is a teacher. At graduation, I received the letter as
promised and I read it. I teared up reading it. My 5th grade self was completely different from
who I was at my high school graduation.

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I never thought about college until the end of my junior year. From fourth grade to my
junior year in high school, my life consisted of homework, athletics, and friends. During my
junior year, I finally had a breakthrough when I fell deeper into my faith. That is when I decided
I needed to figure out what I was meant to do with my life. I looked into different majors such as,
Occupational Therapy, Psychology, and Human Service. Although, at the time, none of them
really sparked my interest and I stopped pursing them. It was not until my senior year after a job
experience in a special education classroom at Watertown high school, that I thought about
pursing the path to become a teacher. Those few days in the special education room were a life
changing experience. I had just broken my collar bone so I was only there for a short time, but in
those few days I made such a powerful connection with those children. I loved teaching them.
Later in my senior year, I decided to request that my six week job experience be in a special
education setting in an elementary school. Throughout the six weeks, I fell in love with special
education even more. I had the opportunity to help out in the 5th grade science room. It made me
think I would enjoy teaching elementary education as well. With much excitement, I applied to
DSU and declared a special and elementary education double major.
Throughout my freshmen year, I had mixed feelings when I went through all of the
education courses. Should I really be a teacher? Can I teach and motivate my future students?
Am I smart enough? All these doubts and questions went through my head. In one of my special
education courses, I learned about Individualized Education Programs (IEP). An IEP is for
children with various learning or other disabilities. Each child must qualify for special education
before putting them on an IEP. My teacher explained the process and gave examples of what
these plans can look like. She talked about the goals and so much more. Then the class split up in
groups and had to create an IEP then grade the other groups. It was time consuming, but teachers

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want the best for their students, so I understand why special education teachers, and the rest who
help them out, put so much time and effort into it. But, I was still not sure teaching was for me.
One reason I enjoyed working with the students I met during my two job experiences in high
school was because each and every one of those children were unique and beautiful. I have
always loved psychology and I enjoyed learning about what makes a person unique. I desire to
know more about children with autism and what in the brain causes certain behaviors. I would
love to get involved with children with disabilities and understand more about what causes those
disabilities.
I have learned a lot from all of my education courses. I will take away a large amount of
information from those courses such as, the organizations of school and how everything in a
school is set up, the ways of teaching in different cultures, knowing the different abuses that can
happen and knowing when the certain abuse is above your pay grade, and so much more. What I
learned will help me in any path I choose to take, because no matter my profession, or if I
become a stay at home mother, I will need to know how a school is set up and in what school
would it be best to enroll my children. It is also important to know about different cultures
because life may take me to another country someday. Even if it is for a short period, I should
know about other cultures and the way they work. It is very important to know about abuse and
when to or not to act on it. There is so much more that I could share on why the education
courses are useful.
I am still not sure what I desire to be in life yet, but I have so much more to live and
learn. Hopefully in a year or two, I will decide which career path to follow. Who knows, I may
end up majoring in what I started out doing, teaching. I gained a great deal of knowledge from
this course that I will retain for a lifetime. I will try hard to search for something I love to do and

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stick with it. A role model of mine who inspires many other people as well is Mother Teresa. She
said, The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it. This is what I will
strive for as well, to be happy no matter what work I do.