My desire to become a teacher was shaped wholly by my senior schooling experience. My Year 11 English teacher showed me what an outstanding educator was and set me on a path to becoming one myself. I had come from a school where the teachers were so focused on the negative behaviour of a select few students that most of the class was behaviour management. I found that I was left behind and felt as though I was being dragged back down to the common level and not being allowed to extend. My English teacher changed this and introduced a new way of learning to us. He had utilised the “all, most, some” differentiation method (Blair, 2007), which allowed extension students to challenge themselves and get the most out of the class while allowing for the lower-achieving students to get more help as needed. This method was never used in my previous classes and I used that learning experience to inform the basis of my approach to differentiation.

My aim as an educator is to provide all students with equal opportunities to excel. I want all of my students to be able to walk out of my classroom with the increased confidence in their abilities and have a new piece of information in their pocket. I understand that my students move at different speeds and that each one of them has their own way of learning so I like to make a point of utilising each of their strengths to give something back to the class.

As a preservice teacher, my time studying education has given me a range of strategies and exposed me to countless theories that I can use to benefit my students. A key theory that strongly resonated with me was Bloom’s taxonomy (1999). I believe that many of the higher order thinking skills are glossed over or forgotten so I have pledged to incorporate them in as many lessons as I can. Another key area for me as an educator is the social justice and inclusion of all of my students. I believe in exposing students to new ways of seeing the world, particularly through the lens of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. I developed these views in particular through my exposure to the EATSIPS (2011) frameworks and theories and I have made an effort to include these viewpoints and learning styles in all of my classes, regardless of the presence of an ATSI student.

As I leave university and venture out into the professional world of teaching, I have sought out professional development opportunities any time I can and I will continue to do so for the benefit of my students. I also have a working performance plan that will allow me to identify key areas of improvement so I can continue to build my professional knowledge and practices.

Overall my students’ emotional, physical and intellectual development is my absolute priority and I would consider myself to be successful if my students leave my classroom in a better state than when they came in.