“We should put aside and postpone all other reforms: that we have but one task—the Instruction of the people, the diffusion of education, the encouragement of science: on that day a great step will have been taken in your regeneration”
------ French Educator: Leon Gambetta
My name is Ji Guo, who is also called Fred. As a graduate freshman in Western Oregon University, I was born in 1987 in a small city, Huai Nan, which is located in the middle of China. I grew up in my hometown. My father is a senior physics teacher in high school, and my mother is a senior Chinese teacher in elementary school. From my childhood on, under the influence of my parents, I set my mind on being a teacher or doing something for the next generation because I always admired teachers who spoke clearly and fluently in front of the blackboard and imparted knowledge to those children who desired to get knowledge although they told me not to do so.
My life has been unusual from others. Normally, my parents spend all their patience to their students, and after they came back home, I was required to finish extra homework offered by them without their help. At that time, I could not understand it because they are my parents, but right now, I am so thankful for what they have done. They have trained me to finish everything by myself independently, even reflecting on anything. Therefore, I have set up a way to study anywhere, and benefited from it.
My undergraduate studies in a normal university focused on Electronic Information Science and Technology. I chose this major in a normal university because I would like to check whether I have innate skills to teach students or not. If I did not inherit teaching skills from my parents, I would be an engineer, but if I did, I would follow their steps to be a teacher in the future. In the undergraduate studies, my academic career in this field has been consistently distinguished and outstanding. My undergraduate GPA is among the top 20 in my class. Recognition of this by the University was shown with the award of a scholarship. Although top 20 might not be a good rank, I also combined what I have grasped in my student career with practical experiences. I won several championships of model-making and my articles were published by newspapers and magazines because I do interest in those. Furthermore, all these achievements that I have had now can be a huge resource and may be fundamental to my career in the future.
I have been eager to continue my personal development and aim at building my personal image through extracurricular and social activities. I am especially interested in practicing as a teacher to experience happiness, satisfaction and other experiences that teaching gives us in the Huai Nan Children`s Palace, which is a public after school academy. In order to enrich extra experiences and diverse lives for children and teenagers, I have been finding opportunities to teach everywhere. Those opportunities to practice have contributed my confidence and ability to be a teacher, to work in some educational settings and broaden my horizons through experience. Additionally, during my undergraduate study, I also volunteered in teaching free courses. And nowadays, for same purpose, I have volunteered in Highland Elementary School as an after school tutor who teaches math, computer, Chinese and science, also in Salem Center 50+ as a computer lab instructor. Doing all those work has brought me satisfaction, especially when I saw learners making progress under my instruction. Such experiences helped me to approach my long time dream of being a teacher.
I came to America in 2009. During the past years, I have attended many foreign teachers’ lectures. Once, in comparing Chinese teachers’ classes with foreign teachers’ classes, I realized that the existing educational conditions in China are distant from satisfactory. The gap between the rich and poor causes the rich to get the best education and the poor to receive the worst education, and there is no way to realize diversity in education if we maintain this status which is very severe now. The teaching methods and the pedagogical ideology have caused Chinese education to be out of place with international development. The current theory and practice in education in China lags behind the developed western countries. Although China is the biggest developing country which has the largest population, market and different resources such as human resources, the biggest challenge is that we cannot make full use of all those resources. In the long run, we have achieved considerable development in education via the Internet in past years. In practical operation such education has always deteriorated into an extended form of the conventional examination-oriented education instead of a really interactive process. It should be colorful and various.
Personally, I have become increasingly aware that despite some of the problems that teachers have encountered in their career, which can be solved by referring to relevant technical literature, more serious flaws existing in the current educational system of China cannot be solved easily and quickly. Under such circumstances, an advanced educational system becomes independent.
The saying “nothing in the world is impossible if you set your mind to do it” has already given me much enthusiasm. I have confidence in everything if I am interesting in doing it with energy. On the other hand, I have been intensively studying English and devoting myself to foreign culture for several years as an undergraduate. Experiencing these foreign cultures, science, philosophy, anthropology and some other fields has strengthened my belief in learning more about all these things. In addition, what I consider is rather a key is that I am specific at computer technology such as graphic technology, parallel computing and high performance computing. My friend and I have developed a GPS application for Windows Mobile cell phone which is called BOBOKing GPS. It has been popular in China since 1 year ago, and we will release English version for American and European users before 2012. Therefore the advantage for me is that I can apply my professional knowledge and background in my educational career to improve the quality efficiency and diversity of education. Not only can we make full use of manual resources, but I also can add the informative methods and high technology to educational affairs. That is my strength.
I actually self-studied extensive works related to education, such as The Condition of Education and A Developmental History of Educational Science in the West, which enabled me to construct a solid groundwork for future studies in this area. And what I think of education now is not just to impart what you have already known to others, but to do it with your own personality, your humor, your thinking method, as well as your passion. Teaching in an original and the creative way, don’t limit your to a small area. Just set your mind to being the best teacher that you can be.
Ample preparation, my sense of purpose and the effective thinking and research approaches, I have developed through nearly 4 years of undergraduate study, and I have prepared me well to greet all of the challenges that I will undoubtedly be presented with in prospective graduate life. Upon the completion of my studies, I plan to continue Doctor`s program and work as a teacher or researcher in educational institutions, especially volunteer in schools and institutes in USA, going to poor areas to teach those promising children to fulfill their dreams to break away from poverty, working on training more professional talents, making more children know the importance of education and further reforming the Chinese educational system to make some contributions to the development of the education industry in my beloved homeland and to realize my consistent dream.
