Instructional & Learning Processes: Secondary

Bio Resume
J. Steve Higgs
Crandall University

In the summer of 2008, I began working with a non-profit organization called The
African Childrens Choir. The organization, founded in 1984, began with a mission to provide
the means to a holistic education to Africas most vulnerable children. At the time, my intention
in taking the job was to take one year to gain some travel experience while simultaneously
investing in the lives of children from Uganda. Little did I know that this one year opportunity
would turn into a three year journey around the world where I would experience firsthand the
positive impact of education on families in impoverished East African communities. Throughout
this season I was exposed to the power and potential of education to break the cycles of poverty
which are pervading many regions in our world. It was here I first began to realize that teaching
provides an opportunity to instil in upcoming generations such virtues as empathy, compassion
and justice. I also became deeply aware that through education students are able to grow up with
the knowledge and abilities needed to provide for themselves, for their families, and for their
communities.

While working and traveling the globe with the organization, I was given the opportunity
to help teach the children using the Ugandan school curriculum. Initially, this was a task I felt
incapable of performing. Until then I had essentially no experience with teaching. At the end of
my first day of lessons, however, I realized two things: First, I realized that teaching children
came relatively naturally to me. I seemed to do well at it and the students in my classroom
seemed to grasp the concepts I was introducing. Thus, I experienced high levels of success and
excitement in my teaching, which prompted me to pursue a career in the field. Second, I realized
that sitting in those chairs were students, most of them orphans, who were hungry to learn. Back
home in Uganda their families were living in poverty, hoping that the education we were
providing for their children would in turn bring about a high quality of sustainable living for
future generations. Education meant hope for these children and their families, and it was
towards this hope I set my sights as I returned home with the goal of obtaining a degree in
education.

Upon my return home, my perspective of children and education, largely influenced by

the experiences previously mentioned, allowed me to observe unique trends in the lives of
children I was working with here. I began to notice that young people in our society, while
privileged in many ways in comparison to those I had worked with from Uganda, often times
face their own unique set of challenges and disadvantages. My heart began to break for children
whose fathers had abandoned them at young ages; for family systems where children are not
exposed to positive and compassionate role models. My experiences with children at home and
abroad led me to conclude that children everywhere are in desperate need of adults who will
model virtuous living by demonstrating sincere qualities such as integrity, humility and empathy.

This is the reason I have pursued a position within the field of education. I believe
effective teaching occurs when educators care about their students and want in every way for
them to succeed in all areas of life. I believe it is essential that our schools be filled with caring
and compassionate teachers. I also believe that I carry these qualities, and will allow them to
inform my teaching methods and classroom management. In schools, teachers have unique
access into students lives that neither parent nor peer have. Teachers are given the opportunity to
walk alongside of their students as they not only communicate curricular content, but as they
teach their students how to love, how to serve, and how to be pro-active citizens of the world in
which they live. Students, I believe, will leave school replicating what they have learned not just
from their Language Arts courses but also from their extra-curricular interactions with teachers.

Ultimately, it is my goal as an educator to develop both critical minds and compassionate

hearts, for I believe the two are highly integrated, influencing one other. Over the course of the
next decade, I hope to pursue this goal within the context of a professional community of
educators that strives to improve the quality of life for each of their students. It is my hope that
my desire to teach vulnerable children, mixed with my passion for cross-cultural diversity, will
open doors to provide meaningful and memorable educational experiences to students of all
backgrounds. I am confident enough in my own abilities to know that I am capable of teaching
content and modelling virtue, but I am also humble enough to admit that I have significant
learning to do along the way.