Philosophy of Education

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein 

My approach and philosophy as an educator can be summed up by this quote from Albert Einstein because it portrays the extraordinary potential that I believe lies inside every individual student and the importance of teaching to strength. I want to teach because I believe every child deserves to know that they have a life worth living, a life worthy of an education, and a life with unique purpose and passion. It is my belief that education should be asset-based and focused on inquisition so students develop a love for learning and discover how they want to make a mark on the world around them. Therefore, my goal as a teacher is to empower young leaders by equipping them with both the self-confidence and the analytical, inquisitive, and critical thinking tools needed to find their unique passions, voice their opinions, fight injustice, and pioneer for positive change in the world. Additionally, as a Spanish teacher and a lover of language, culture, and travel, I fundamentally believe learning a foreign language and culture is essential in the learning process as it creates a global, well-informed, diverse, and tolerant member of society, something I highly value in my life and in my future classroom.

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Highlights of my academic experience here at Ohio State include the many field experiences I’ve had in schools/classrooms/extra-curriculars that have prepared me to become an educator. These include my student teaching at Grove City High School, student aiding at Highland Elementary in English and ESL classrooms, tutoring at Gahanna Homework Help Center, leading youth group at Big Walnut High School through Young Life, and leading a service team through the Mount Leadership Society that fundraised a book drive and served as reading buddies for the second-grade class at KIPP Columbus. Through these experiences I have developed a wide range of skills and learned key insights including

  •  My ability to communicate material and concepts to students of various ages
  •  My confidence and comfort speaking in front of a classroom
  • Motivation techniques for learners of various types
  • Empathy skills and learning how to support students emotionally
  • Differentiation and delegation skills 
  • Time management and organizational skills
  • Collaboration among peers and superiors
  • An overall passion to work with students and to teach

G.O.A.L.S

Global Awareness

As a Spanish Major, I plan to study abroad in Granada, Spain for all of Spring Semester 2019. I will have the opportunity to take Spanish classes at the University of Granada, live with a local host family, and be fully immersed in the Spanish language and culture. Living in Spain will be a life and career-changing experience that will allow me to broaden my global perspective as I get to explore the language, food, music, history, and culture of Spain.

Individual Inquiry

Being a buckeye and having the city of Columbus at my fingertips, I have had the opportunity to connect with Columbus City School District to engage in an incredible educational individual inquiry experience. As a student passionate about education, Spanish and citizenship, I reached out to the ESL teacher at Highland Elementary to see if I could help out in her classroom in any way. She gladly welcomed me, and for all of spring 2018 semester I have been aiding in her first and third grade ESL classrooms for a couple of hours every week. This experience revealed in me a huge passion to work with children, especially those learning English as a second language. So much so that I have decided to continue working with children of this age and pursue a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) endorsement onto my licensure after graduation.

Academic Enrichment

I’ve already had the opportunity to enrich my academic experience at Ohio State through courses that allow me to gain insight into the teaching profession by participating in field experiences at multiple local Columbus school districts. In an experiential course called First Education Experience Program (FEEP), I had the opportunity to student aid/teach in Spanish II and IV classrooms at Grove City High School for a semester. This opportunity confirmed my passion for teaching and providing me with real-life classroom experience that helped me understand the ups and downs of the teacher profession.

Leadership Development

My involvement with the Mount Leadership Society has been instrumental in the development of my leadership skills. I have learned about the seven C’s of the Social Change Model, engaged in monthly seminar trainings on various leadership topics such as diversity, ethics, public speaking, and goal setting, and have had the opportunity to network with alumni, faculty, and staff. As captain of team Education’s service team, I have had practice with collaboration, delegation, running meetings, leading peers, budgeting, and public speaking. In addition, as a leadership studies minor, I am growing in my personal leadership style and technique within the academic setting.

Service Engagement

A large portion of my time outside of the classroom is filled by my duties as a voluntary Young Life youth group leader at Big Walnut High School, a local school just outside of Columbus. Young Life is a global Christian ministry organization whose mission is to introduce students to the gospel and help them grow in their faith. As a young life leader, I’m blessed with the opportunity to lead weekly club events and bible studies while building relationships with high school girls, serving as a mentor and discipler.

Mount Leadership Society Scholars

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This picture is from the Mount Leadership Society Scholars 2016 Fall Retreat. I am pictured on the bottom far right along with my fellow Mounties. The Mount Leadership Society is a scholars group focused on leadership and community service. The mission of the Mount Leadership Society is to foster student leaders for a diverse and ethnic society through the means of social reform work and community service.
As a first-year Mountie, I have had the opportunity to serve the Mid-Ohio Foodbank by partnering with Empty Bowls, an organization that works to fights local hunger by creating and selling clay bowls in order to raise money for local families. I have also helped serve the Mid-Ohio food bank by making soup for the organization to sell alongside the bowls. Another amazing service opportunity was helping run a wounded veterans Wheelchair Basketball Tournament by running the game clock and doing the books. Other smaller service opportunities I have had the chance to be a part of was building fun bottle-search games to send to clinically ill children in the Columbus Children’s Hospital, making dog treats to send to a local kennel, writing letters to thank military personnel currently fighting overseas, and making goodie bags to deliver to the entire cleaning staff in our university residence hall.
The main leadership project for first year Mount Scholars is called Legacy Week. The scholars group divides into six teams—Environmental, Global, Poverty, Education, Abuse and Health, and each team creates and implements three service projects based on their team topic entirely from scratch. Being extremely passionate about education, I took on a role as one of the four Education Team Captains. We run a team of 19 and are in charge of leading the team in brainstorming, planning and implementing our team projects. Already, Legacy Week has provided me with invaluable experience in leadership and teamwork. Mount has been an incredible opportunity to not only build my strengths as a leader through Myers Briggs testing, StrengthsFinder, Mount Summit workshops and Legacy Week, but it has also been a fantastic way to make a difference in the lives of others through social reform and community service.

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This artifact is a picture taken at the 2016 Ohio State Young Life Fall Weekend trip to Rockbridge Alum Springs in Goshen, Virginia. I am pictured on the far right, along with my roommate Taylor and fellow young life members Haylie and Tori. Young Life is a Christian outreach organization that seeks to better the lives of today’s youth through ministry work. This trip was a chance to develop stronger relationships with fellow Buckeyes and other students from various colleges across the nation, as well as grow in our relationship with Christ. I am extremely excited to be in the process of First Year, the training all Ohio State students go through in order to become a Young Life Leader. Once I successfully become a leader, I will be placed in a local Columbus high school where I will serve as a mentor and teacher to high school students by leading club talks, bible studies and small group sessions. I plan to lead as many struggling students to Jesus Christ as possible, in hopes that they can develop and strengthen their relationship and faith. This group was very influential in my life as a high school student, and I am beyond excited to fill the role as a leader, and get the chance to serve as a mentor, role model and source of guidance for young adults in the Columbus area.

About Me

Hi! My name is Samantha Lee and I am from West Chester, Ohio a suburb outside the Cincinnati area. I am a Spanish Major with plans to pursue a Master’s degree in World Language Education in order to become a Spanish teacher. As a future educator, I am passionate about student’s rights to equity education and serving communities who are underfunded and underrepresented. My goal as a teacher is to affect positive change in my classroom by motivating my students to discover their unique passions and purpose in life. I want every student to understand that they have value, potential, and purpose, and should use education as an essential tool in achieving their dreams. 

Year of Service in Review

As a second-year Mount Leadership Society Scholar, I participated in an in-depth service-learning experience called “Year of Service” where I completed 90+ hours of service with a single volunteer organization over the course of the year. Check out my synopsis to learn all about what I did and how it impacted me as a leader!