My name is Saralyn Simpson.  I was born in Ottawa, Il, which is about 90 miles south of Chicago.  Science has been exciting to me at times, but also scary and confusing to me at times.  In elementary school, I just remember doing hands-on experiments in class that would be used as our science time.  My favorite experiment was the egg drop experiment where we had to find some sort of way to be able to drop an egg off of the tall slide and make it stay in tact while landing on the ground.  During that experiment, we had to write down what we thought would happen and then write what actually happened after we dropped our eggs from the slide.  We also focused a lot on the scientific method for our experiments.  When I had to take things home for homework, my dad was always the one I went to.  My mom has always said, “Dad is science and social studies.  I am math and reading.”  She really disliked science; so right from the start I had a negative thought about science.  Luckily, my parents and grandparents liked to take me outside to search for bugs, look through the telescope at the stars, and go exploring through the woods.  I did not realize that they were science activities until I was older, but I’m really glad I got those opportunities as a child.  

Once I got into junior high, I had an actual science class to go to.  For both seventh and eighth grade, I had to do a week in a lecture-setting classroom, and then switch to a lab setting for the next week.  The lecture class would be when we took tests and talked about what we would be doing in lab, then the lab would be for when we actually performed the experiments.  I enjoyed being in the lab much more than in the lecture because I’m a hands-on learner and I enjoyed working with my classmates, rather than being alone.  I excelled in junior high, but once I got into high school, I struggled a little more.

Starting off my freshman year at Ottawa High, I was in the accelerated science class.  The science was much more difficult than I had experienced in junior high, so I realized I needed to work hard and study harder in order to succeed.  I was also only one of three freshman girls in my class and the rest were upperclassmen I did not know.  That scared me a lot and I felt alone, leading me to shy away from finding partners for assignments in class for the first few months of school.  I ended up making friends outside of my class level, so I started to enjoy the class despite the harder work. Once I got into advanced chemistry my junior year, I realized that science was for sure not for me.  I found myself asking a lot of questions and having to work together with my classmates in order to find the right information.  I relaxed when I realized my classmates were also struggling to retain the information because it validated to me that the information was difficult rather than me being dumb.  When asking my teachers for help, they asked me to come in early to help me with what I needed in order to comprehend the information.  I liked having teachers that were willing to take some extra time to help me with what I didn’t understand.  They were helpful in me making my decision to be a teacher because they showed me that they cared about me, even though they had 100+ other students.

After I graduated, I went on to my first college, Illinois Valley Community College, where I decided I wanted to be in the early childhood program.  I took a lot of child-centered classes and general education classes.  The science classes that I took were anthropology, sociology and psychology.  Sociology was my least favorite due to having a first year college professor, but I loved anthropology and psychology.  The worst part was only having lecture styled classes.  I graduated from IVCC with an Associate Degree in Science and an Associate Degree in Arts.

I then moved on to study Early Childhood Education at ISU. I wanted to get a minor in psychology because I loved it so much, but I did not, due to setting me back a semester for graduation.  Coming into the program, I did not have much experience with children outside of teaching preschool in high school, being a nanny, doing clinical observations, and babysitting.  Since I have always worked with really young children in my settings, I find myself being more interested in babies and children up to age 6.   With that being said, I would really like to teach kindergarten.  I know that being an early childhood educator means I will be the science teacher, the literacy teacher, the math teacher, etc. to my students.  I do not want to rely on teaching out of a book to my students because that is how my cooperating teacher last year taught science.  Science was pushed aside and I only saw it twice the entire semester.  I want to be able to encourage students to do activities and learn through experiences, rather than just out of a book.  
Not much about my culture influenced my experiences with science.  I think a lot of people have the assumption that girls aren't expected to do very well at science.  I did not think that growing up because I had the same amount of female science teachers as I did male science teachers.  That helped me learn from a young age that gender stereotypes are just that: stereotypes.  I was able to see that males could teach any subject/age they wanted and so could females.  If I wanted to grow up to be a scientist, I did not have the preconception that I wouldn't be allowed to because I am a girl.  The fact that my family is upper-middle class helped me do a lot of research for my projects and make them really creative.  For a planets project I had to do in third grade, I was able to go home and get on my computer to research information to put on my Saturn box.  I was also blessed to be able to afford all the different supplies I needed to make my box fun and imaginative.  I never had to go through the struggle that some people have to go through, for example to get school supplies, because of the financial stability in my household. I think that if I did have the problem of accessing the internet or not being able to get cool items for my projects would have made me upset and hate doing science projects.  Instead, it was easy for me and I did not mind having to do them.  Growing up, religion was never a big thing in my family.  Both sets of my grandparents are religious and my family would attend church with them sometimes, but I still consider myself religion-less.  I think my ideas of evolution and how things come to be are definitely scientific beliefs. I do think that science explains everything, so growing up with that in mind made me appreciate science, rather than not believe a lot of it because of my religion.

Because of my past experiences with such great teachers, I would like to be “that” teacher to my students.  I want to be the one who will put in the extra time to help the children who are struggling, just like the teachers I had.  I want all of my students to know that I care about them equally and I believe that they can all succeed.  Just because science is not my all-time favorite subject, I want to instill in my children that science is fun and can be seen and done all around them. Remaining encouraging and positive towards all of my students will be beneficial to their success because some children need an extra push to get better at whatever it is they're doing.  I have experienced so many kids who do not expect a lot out of themselves and rely on their teacher to help them gain confidence.  Even though I know that not all of my students will grasp everything I teach them, I want them to know that I believe they can always do more than they think they're capable of. 

Here's a link to a pinterest page that is very similar to my egg drop experiment as a child! 

http://www.parentteachplay.com/egg-drop-science-experiment/