Bryce Sinn

Education Auto biography

Foundations of education

2/17/18

During the time that I spent in the education department at Washington, I learned a lot

of valuable lessons on how to be a mature adult. I also to learn how to be a respectable person

of society. My learning career started off in the school of Stewart Elementary, at this school I

was taught how to be energetic, meet people, and make friends. As I was growing up I was told

that school was valuable and to make sure it always came first. My biggest outside influence

had to be attributed to the fact that my mom was a teacher. She was always on my butt about

reading books or practice my multiplication flash cards. My mom really made a point in

stressing how important school was. One of the most influential experiences that I had with her

was when I was going in to my 3rd or 4th grade year, she made me go to a teacher’s house over

the summer a few times a week to work on school work. She noticed that at a young age school

was going to be a challenge for me so she did this to help me understand concepts better and

keep up with my peers. Another experience that had a huge impact on me was when I was

attending Lincoln Elementary in 5th grade, I received an award for being a kind person. When I

won this it made me feel really good about myself and made me strive to be a nice person at all

times. The final experience that really had an impact on me during school was how I was raised

outside of school. I was taught to treat kids with compassion and just be a kind person in
general. This is something I have continued to value and can be genuinely proud of myself for

maintaining.

When going to school I never had too much diversity when it came to who I was as a

person. I grew up in a family household that was religious, and attended the Methodist church

in town. I would always go with my mom to this church every Sunday. During my high school

years I was a very popular person, due to the fact that I was a multi-sport athlete. I received the

athlete of the year award and I was the homecoming king. This allowed me to have a lot of

friends in high school. I would run around in school with kids that played sports and were my

teammates. But the difference with me was that I was a kid that would talk to anyone in the

school. For example if a kids was sitting by himself at lunch I would make an attempt to go and

sit with him and make him feel like he had someone to talk to at all times. I also went through

high school with a girlfriend. I dated a girl for 2 years in high school, we had a lot of memorable

times that I still cherish today. Once we broke up me being my male self also had fun that

summer before college on the weekend. I made a lot of new friends that were girls, and I got

really close with some of them. High school was a fun time for me and I am able to maintain a

lot of the friendships that I had in high school today.

One of the impacts that school had on me throughout my life is the challenge it brang.

School has never been something that I have been good at. I went through school staying up

late at nights and being very frustrated with myself and my mom because I wasn’t able to

remember things for an upcoming test. I glided through school treating it as if anything that I

needed to know was temporary, remembering it only long enough to pass the class. I found out

this was not a good way to learn things. I would look at my material that I would have to know
for a test and just say it over and over again until I remembered exactly what was on that paper

for the next day when I took the test. Then of course I would forget all of this in a few days. This

made learning important things very hard for me.

When I was in school I was a multi-sport athlete for 4 years. This made school very hard

in certain ways. I always seemed too tiered in school. The other aspect that affected me was I

was in a sport year round and I had a job. It was almost unreal, what I was doing to my body

when I look back. When looking back my schedule was very busy, it was wake up at 4:30am and

go to work, leave at 6am to go to lifting, get to school at 8am, go to practice at 3:30pm, leave

practice to go to work at 6pm, then get off work at 10pm or 11pm, and then finally doing

homework when I get home. I was getting almost no sleep through my sophomore year of high

school. By looking at my transcript for my years in high school you see my grades drop a very

large amount that year. It was very hard being a student when doing all of this.

The biggest diversity that occurred to me when I was in school was the passing of my

mom halfway through my junior year of high school. My mom was very sick when I was in

school, she had cancer for about 6 years. Seeing my mom sick was nothing new to me, I went

through school seeing my mom battle ovarian cancer and watching the effects that it had her

body after every surgery and every chemo and radiation treatment. All of this sickness and

sadness started to wear on me by the start of my junior year. I was told countless times growing

up after every surgery and treatment my mom was going to be just fine. I really believed this

until my junior year started. After finding out my mom’s cancer spread to her ovaries, lungs,

and brains all in that order, it started to dawn on me how long all this was had been going on

which opened my eyes to notice a change in her health drastically. Junior year of football
season I was really starting to blossom into the athlete that I am and this made my mom so

proud while watching me play. I would always see mom after games leaning on the fence

waiting to talk to me. Giving my mom a huge hug after the game and taking a picture with her

made her so happy. She would always be wearing her stocking hat because of the effects of

chemo having on her made her lose her hair. People would stare at my mom wondering why

she looked so sick and why it was so hard for her to walk over to me. But I showed my mom off

with pride, I loved all the things she did for me. After the season was over basketball season

started up. This was when life really started to get real with my mom’s health. I was missing

school to take my mom up to get radiation done, and I remember this was when she was

started to lose her common sense in a way with all the drugs she had in her from the doctors. I

would drive her up to University hospital to get this done, I would try so hard not to swerve or

hit any bumps because every time the car bounced it would hurt my mom’s body. This also hurt

me dearly seeing my mom in such pain. After she was no longer was able to make it up to the

hospital due to her health and the treatments not doing any good my mom started staying at

home. I would come home every day at 9am to walk mom to the bathroom so she wouldn’t fall

getting there. One of the hardest things I have ever had to do was shave the back of my mom’s

head when the doctors were not able to give her 2 minutes of their time to do it. This made

mom feel so worthless. When she came home crying that day I asked her if she would let me do

it, she said yes while crying and hugging me. Going to school with all this occurring made it very

hard to do my homework and have a social life. Mom eventually had to get a wheel chair too

because she wasn’t able to walk anymore. This was when I really saw my mom starting to die

by the look of her body. She wasn’t able to talk to me anymore or have a conversation. I would
look into her eyes when sitting next to her with my arm around her and I could see she wasn’t

there she was off in a distance. Before every basketball game I would come home and tell her

“mom I got a game tonight, wish me luck I love you, I’ll see you when i get home!” Mom

couldn’t talk very well at this time and she would whisper “good luck I love you” and give me a

smile that wasn’t her normal smile but it was the best she could do. All of this happening really

threw off my basketball game. One night later I went to mom’s bedroom that we made for her

since she wasn’t able to sleep upstairs anymore. I went to her and gave her a hug and said

“goodnight mom I love you”. I waited for her to say something back and nothing came back. I

said it again and again I put my ear up to her mouth and I could barely faintly here her say

“goodnight I love you”. Those were the last words mom was able to say before she wasn’t able

to speak anymore. My birthday is on February 19th and on this day mom was her normal sick

self and I wasn’t expecting anything because dad was busy with mom and money was tight. But

dad gave me a hundred dollars and said to be a kid and spend this. I took the money and gave

dad a hug and said I love him and this was the first time I ever saw my dad cry. I looked at mom

and saw her staring blankly but she was crying to. On February 22 rd I was coming home to say

bye to mom before my last basketball game and the nurses were there and told me that mom

had a seizure. I wasn’t sure if I should go to my game being this upset. I went to the game and

played the best game of my life. When I came home my mom had another seizure so my dad

and I had to carry her to her bed. On the 23rd I came home at 9 o’clock as usual and the nurses

were there and dad pulled me aside and said mom doesn’t have very long. So I stayed home

that day and laid in bed the entire day with mom with my arm around her. I told her many

times that I wouldn’t leave her alone I didn’t want her to be scared. I laid with her the entire
day and then she started breathing really heavy and a few hours later with my arm around

mom all of a sudden I didn’t hear her breathing anymore and I saw her mouth drop and the life

leaver her body. This image has stuck with me to this day. The hardest part of the entire ordeal

with my mom was in those months of her being really sick I never was able to cry in front of her

I never wanted her to feel like she was upsetting me this really hurt me mentally I think. I

would go upstairs in my room and cry to myself because I was scared of being alone without my

mom. I was afraid of losing my best friend in life. All of these events with my mom has put the

biggest amount of diversity on me during school.

Going through school I had a really good buddy that had a disability. His name was Troy

Holtmire. He has been a friend of mine since we were in the same class together in 4 th grade. I

have always watched out for him going through school. I would always talk to him every chance

I got and make him feel good about himself. If any kids in the school ever made fun of him or

bullied him I would always stand up for him and stop all of that. There would be times when I

would hear about it and I would go find them and make them stop that very quickly. I really

liked that kid and would do anything for him.

The main reason that I am wanting to become a teacher is to help kids when they are in

school with shitty situations that will occur to them. This all was started by the experience that I

had with my mom. I went through school during that time not knowing who I could talk to

about it and I want to teach kids and be more than a teacher to them. I want to use my

experiences to help people that are struggling. Being able to say I know what you’re going

through and being able to talk to them.