Jessry
Smith
Aspiring Educator
About Me
I'll start off by (re-)introducing myself. My name is Jessry, born in Bakersfield California, but Oregon raised!
When I was about two years old my mom decided Bakersfield wasn't the pace she wanted to raise a child, and so, for a short time we lived in Oregon. For about four more years, we lived a rather nomadic life; living in five states and traveling to 26 states. I believe this adventurous, nomadic sort of life-style translated well into my future, because now all I want is to travel and teach abroad.
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Once we came back to Oregon and officially settled down, it was pretty smooth riding. I always had every and anything I needed. Growing up an only child, I got pretty lucky in this sense. However, not everything I wanted was handed to me. I was always taught and reminded that, with hard work comes great discipline and even greater rewards. This has been a lesson that has stuck with me form kindergarten to now.
School has always been my number one escape, and education has always been a passion of mine. It's the place where I can put aside issues and focus on myself and a lot of times others. It's the place I feel most comfortable and at ease. I think-because of my early onset adoration for school-that's why I want to be a educator. I want to be able to provide the feeling of wanting and being excited to learn for my future students. School shouldn't be something we constantly dread. School should be a place we can explore ourselves: our talents, passions, weaknesses and what makes us strong as individuals. I think my greatest goal is to change the way we look at the education system, but most importantly how we, as educators, change the system within our classrooms.
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For me, teaching isn't just teaching. It's a process of learning and teaching together. Teachers have a lot of knowledge, sure, but the way we interpret our knowledge and teach it to others isn't always effective. It requires understanding and learning how they do. We have to be more aware of context, culture and the individual.
Now, it's going to take a lot of dedication and hard work to change a system that is so deeply rooted, but I'm willing to dig as deep as possible to pull those rotten roots from the dirt to make room for a new garden that students can flourish in.
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The summer of 2017 was the summer I had my first major life-changing experience. During the summer of 2017 I was selected as one of three Springfield/Eugene student delegates to travel to Jinju, South Korea.
February of the same year I discovered that Springfield has a sister city in South Korea during the annual Asian festival. I had just started teaching myself how to read Korean, and being that the sign for the sister city committee was in Korean I had a go at reading it aloud. To my surprise, the cute elderly man standing at the booth was listening in and the rest is history. During my time in Korea, I stayed with two different host families from July 16th to the 30th. The most reccuring thing I noticed was how much time they dedicated to their studies, and the fact that they were still in school while us three Oregonians were on vacation. Being that my first language is english, one of my host sisters asked me for help with her english work, and to my surprise it was a challenge, even for me. Now I've made it my goal to become an English teacher.
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Goals
Academic
I expect to graduate in 2024/25 with a Bachelors in Foreign Languages: Korean, French and German; a certificate for TESOL; and lastly a Masters in Linguistics/Communication. My ultimate goal is to gain experience from studying abroad and working with those from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds than myself.
Personal
Outside of Academic goals, I would like to travel the world, and have different cultural and spiritual experiences; both at home and anywhere else possible. I think an important part to living a healthy and happy life is to make sure to do what you want. Of course, when you do well, it's important to help others do well, too, but too often we forget that it's okay to put our goals and desires first. I want to be sure that I do this, while also giving back to the world and all those who have helped me along the way.
Professional
Ideally I would love nothing more than to make a living out travelling and teaching across the world. We underestimate the power of learning and teaching others, and I believe those two things are most fulfilling. One of my goals, professionally and outside of teaching, would to become an interpretor (not a translator). Interpreting takes into account cultural context, situation, emotions and is much more in-depth than direct translation that can often misinterpret messages.
Education
2018 / Present
Lane Community College
The following fall after my high school graduation I enrolled as a Secondary Education major at LCC. As of Spring 2020, I will have completed my Associates in Secondary Education, and will have graduated from LCC.
2020 / 2024
Oregon State University
Upon completing my time at Lane, I will be transferring to OSU as a Pre-Communication major. My goal is to continue the path to education, but to take on another world of linguistics and communication.