My name is Michelle Przekop. I am nineteen years old and come from a small suburban town in the Bay Area. Back home I live with my mom, dad, younger brother, dog, and parakeet. While I miss them a lot, I am so glad I came to Chico State. I love it here and have made so many friends that feel like family. I am excited now that I am getting so close to graduating (next year) and will be able get in a classroom and teach. I am a part of ITEC so I will be graduating a year earlier than most, which is both terrifying and exciting all at the same time. However, this pathway has been an exciting and educational journey that I am happy to have taken.
I think as a future educator it is important to see the beauty in all subjects that will be taught regardless of personal feelings. For example, I never liked math (mostly because I struggled with it) but since coming to Chico State and studying how to teach math, I have learned to appreciate that math is kind of like a fun puzzle. That’s why I think it’s important to really show students that educational tasks, such as reading, can be fun and don’t always have to be ‘boring homework’.
Personally, I would not describe myself as a reader, but this is possibly because of (like we talked about in class) the negative social stigma that comes with the title. ‘If you like reading, you are probably a nerd’. I think this is silly, because I do love reading, but I think I have trouble saying I am a reader because of the negative perceptions that come with it.
I also think I have trouble saying I am a reader because I feel like I don’t read that much. Over the course of the one month winter break I only finished one novel (a good one too, I really enjoyed it). I believe that most of the time we assume readers are people who read at least one book a week; something most people don’t have time for.
I also believe that I would read more novels if I didn’t have so much school related reading to do. Some of the stuff we read for classes is really interesting and captivating, but other readings can seem like they drag on forever. I think this gives us a negative association with reading, because we learn to dread it.
I do think that we read more than we think (text messages, online articles, etc.) but we tend to not count that towards the ‘reader’ status. I think it would beneficial to us to realize that just because we don’t read stacks on stacks of books, we are still all capable of being good readers.
