For those passersby who have found their way to this website, I wish to explain a few elements of this portfolio:
For one, the author speaking (Ms. Grace Ayer), has hardly completed anything
- rather, I have only a meager supply of documented victories to tout so far.
Second, this portfolio is meant to be a professional record of achievements and growth over a two year period. I will do my best to present all of my growth as accurately as possible. I will provide as much relevant evidence as I can find; ultimately, to convince the reader that I have done the most to improve myself in this two year period.
However, I have to offer a disclaimer. After two years, I am by no means a master teacher of sixth grade writing. In fact, I am hardly much better than the person who walked out of North Panola Junior High to return to summer school last May.
Finally, to claim mastery in teaching, would cheapen the careers of committed teachers across the globe. Those, particularly, who toil away at their craft for years and years, receiving little credit for their victories, and still less credit for the good they cultivate in every child. I consider myself only at the beginning of a long career of teaching. I hope to do everything I can to preserve myself and maintain the best outlook possible for all my future students.
A note on Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors:
For those who have not read Shakespeare since a seminar their freshman year of college, I'll offer some explanation for why I would choose a dinky little play like this. Rather than a broad theme, like "Shakespeare" or "Theater" or even "Broadway Smash Hits," I chose this work specifically and carefully.
The play itself is short. In fact, it is Shakespeare's shortest play (perhaps a good intro for those of you who tend to avoid his work). The play revolves around a simple misunderstanding. Two sets of identical twins, separated at birth, are mistaken for each other within the city of Ephesus. The play quickly becomes a slapstick circus driven by mistaken identity. Each man knows who he is, yet is faced with interactions where someone expects something completely foreign from him. He acts as himself, dealing constantly with the expectations other characters place on him.
In this way, the play suits my portfolio. I, a normal girl, journeyed to a foreign land. In Como, I believed I was one person. I had expectations of myself. I had an understanding of how I should act. Yet, every interaction proved the opposite. Co-workers, students, parents, saw me as a teacher. They needed me and expected me to behave in a way that was totally unnatural. At times, it was hilarious. Nothing about teaching was innately part of me. My attempts to act natural often drew more attention to how out of sorts I was. Many times, I thought to myself, "How did I get here? How is it that I am here, right now, required to do these things that I am totally under-qualified for..." and then shortly later "Have people guessed that I'm actually a fraud? Do people know that I am totally not for real? That I drive home and watch anime and eat freeze pops to deal with it all?"
So, I have written a series of examples of different mistakes I have made, lessons I have learned, and how each error, and each experience worked out to teach me something valuable about education. Every time I felt like I was the wrong person, that my job required someone way better equipped, I was actually just learning how to do my job. Teaching, as it turns out, is a career where even "best practices" don't guarantee success, and failure is constant.