My Memoir

Memoir –Write a creative nonfiction/memoir piece narrating a personal educational experience from the recent or distant past. Use as many details as possible.

Hi guys! My name is Amanda Shope and I currently teach first grade in inner city Cleveland. I became interested in the education field when I started college in 2003. I took some classes my freshman year and decided that I would rather travel then jump right into the real world. I took a job in Lake Tahoe, California teaching snowboarding and became a snow bum. The following summer I moved to Montana and did raft guiding down the Yellow Stone River and eventually decided I should probably go back to school. Since I wasn’t ready to stop traveling I got a degree in Eco Tourism Adventure travel and took a job as a Scuba Diving Instructor at an international field studies station in Andros, Island Bahamas. At the field studies station, students from high school and college would come for a week to two weeks to earn credits. Everyone bunked in rock shacks on the beach which had little running water and ran on solar power. It was an amazing experience for all. I taught the students island ecology, fish identification, scuba diving, sea kayaking, island history, and took them on field trip around the island.  While on Andros, I became friends with locals who got me involved in working with the schools around the island. The island schools were very poor and consisted of cinder block walls and dirt floors. I fell in love with working with the students and became very involved. We had book drives from Florida to Bahamas, taught the students about the ocean, island ecology, and took them on field trips to place around the island.  There is something about working with students who have less that makes it so much more gratifying to work with them. They were happy with life and the things they had. When it came time for me to move back, I enrolled in classes again to obtain my teaching degree. I began working at a daycare facility for 3 years teaching pre-k. I then worked as an aide in a resource room for students with mild to moderate social and emotional disorders. I completed my student teaching in inner city Cleveland and had an amazing experience with an amazing mentor teacher. I have been teaching first grade now in inner city Cleveland for two years. 

Looking back on my experiences, I was teaching people the entire time I was traveling. I was teaching them to basics of snowboarding. I taught people about the river, the Yellow Stone park system, and rafting. I then taught school age, high school, and college students island ecology, fish identification, scuba diving, sea kayaking and more. All of my experiences have shaped who I am in the educational field. I love teaching. I have contemplated leaving the profession due to the downfalls of working at a charter school, the educational system in itself, and the fact that is very hard to find a job in an established school system that pays well and is run well. I also think that our government involvement in education has taken out all of the fun and put so much pressure on children and teachers that it has at some points become unenjoyable and more of a stressor. I sometimes think to myself, could I find another occupation that pays more and require less?  But then again I do not think I would feel the gratification that I get after seeing students improve.