Epilogue - May 6

If a complete stranger were to peruse my Personal Writing Portfolio I hope that they would learn many things about me. For instance that I am very passionate about my work as an educator and that I take the future of the children who walk into my classroom (hopefully soon my counseling office) very seriously. I want each child to be successful, to learn about themselves, and to grow as a student, individual, and member of society. I also hope they recognize how passionate I am about my family because I tend to write about them a lot in my Personal Writing Portfolio because they have affected me personally in many ways.

As I worked through this Personal Portfolio with my students I also realized that it is easy for me to think of myself in both a positive and negative manner. It was easy to create an equal list of good and bad habits that I have. I think this tells me that I know myself pretty well and that I am content with the way in which I live my live. I know all the bad habits and things I do and as long as I continue to acknowledge them this means I am working on them.

My writing comes from a much different angle than that of my students who are only in high school. I hope that some of the topics I wrote about and things I shared about my self, beliefs, and values help them to develop their own unique definition of themselves. As their teacher, an adult, and a caring individual in their lives I hope that by participating alongside them in the Personal Writing Portfolio journey they have gained more respect for me and more respect for their own writing.  This assignment really helped me to clear my mind and focus on me, which I think everyone needs to do sometimes. With the prompts provided I was able to make my ideas, beliefs, values, experiences, concrete things rather than just things I say aloud or think in my head.

Reflecting back on what I wrote I would describe myself with these three words:

Passionate – I chose this word because as I mentioned before this entire project comes from my passion to be a great educator.

Honest – This portfolio for me was all about honesty and being open with not only myself but also my students and whoever else may read through blog during its life on the internet.

Deep – I tried to step outside my comfort zone while writing these responses and be as detailed and conscious of my inner self as I could so that I could find a deeper meaning within myself for my responses.