About Me
My name Is Justin Yepez, and I am currently pursuing the field of education. I graduated from Del Valle High School in El Paso, Texas in the year of 2005. I then joined the United States Army in June 2006 where I went through the enlisted ranks from a Private E-1 to a SSG E-6 and left the military in 2014. I then began to go to school for my degree in education. I was called to the field of education after I saw how a persons' knowledge is affected in their adult years based off of their education in their adolescent years. I became a photographer and videographer business partner while I was going to school. In my elementary school years I was always a student that was never on the low end, however I was never on the high end either. I was always in the middle and fell through the cracks. I want to become an educator to reach not just the high or the low students, I want to reach them all. Everyone needs someone to push them and be there with them through the difficult journey of education and that is why I am prepared to do whatever it takes to help all students accomplish their goals.
Philosophy
I am very energetic, positive, and driven to begin educating our future generations. I am very passionate about everything that I do and even more so when it come to teaching. I strongly believe that the grit, energy, and affection that one puts into their craft, such as teaching, makes a difference in those that are in the classroom learning. I believe in encouraging active learning and having students learn from each other, like Maria Montessori's philosophy and method of educating children. The belief that all students want to learn and that with a learning enriched environment and hands on activities it allows for students to learn through experiences. I also believe that students can learn from one another instead of just from the teacher. Students build and have their own schemas that they assimilate and accommodate knowledge with and by allowing the students to work with each other they can help fit the knowledge that they are learning into those schemas. Allowing students to move around and work with others helps promote their social interactions which plays an essential role in the progression of their cognitive development. The importance of understanding your students plays a vital role in making this work, by pairing or grouping students to where there is an even disbursement of high and low students allows each group to have a more knowledgeable other. Thus, allowing for the students to help each when working in their zones of proximal development and making the learning more relevant for all students. This gives the more knowledgeable other a more concrete understanding as they have to be able to articulate what they know to teach one of their peers and it allows the lower student to make connections with their peer to better understand and learn the material through their social interactions. There are many strategies that can be used to make the learning environment one that is not just teacher led but student led as well. Kagan strategies such as turning and talking or rally coach are just a few great ideas that can be implemented into a lesson that help students learn in ways other than by just listening to the teacher. I didn't want to become a educator because I thought it would be easy, I became an educator because it takes a special someone to make a difference. That's what I want to do, make a difference, not for me, but for the students because they deserve it.
Teaching is NOT a job,
it's a CALLING .”
- Joe Martin-
The Educator Motivator