in preparing for my final year of college, (eek! kind of scared) i have gone back and forth with the three possibilities i have for particular requirement for my major and have concluded to do the internship. though i have been leaning towards teaching and yesterday concluded teaching is the right decision (aside from my dislike for traditional therapy, therapists job is to be emotionally detached and i want to work in a position where i can be emotionally involved and invested in the children), i have much experience in various teaching arenas and decided i wanted to see what there therapy field has to offer. i have decided to apply for my internship position at two of the therapy related sites. this will give me a feel for my other choice as a career and even if i stick with the teaching plan will give me a different outlook on the children i interact with in my classrooms. part of the application requirement is a personal statement; after much trouble and not knowing what to write, i came out with a personal statement i rather like.
College, for many is a bridge between childhood and adulthood; one takes the wheel and begins to direct his/her own life. Through self exploration, education, and experience, one prepares to enter a field of choice and begin a professional life; ideally one which reflects his/her character and core values. In such, passion facilitate goals and dreams become reality, muting impossibilities.
With an outlook of realistic optimism, I know that anything is attainable providing I motivate myself to reach far enough to hold it within my grasp. Knowing that part of life are the struggles we face, I have chosen to approach my life with this realistic optimistic approach. I believe that struggles separate one's passion from one's mere desire and so shape one's character. The struggles I have faced in my life have both made me the person I am today and prepared me for my future in helping and advocating for children.
Growing up with selective mutism, I had difficulty communicating in a conventional way in several settings outside of my house. Not understanding this diagnosis until recent years with my own study, as a child I often felt lost and confused about my inability to communicate at par with expectations and internalized guilt from the belief that this was a conscious decision on my part. Through coping with selective mutism, I have resorted to alternative modes of communication to ensure that I was understood. This condition has blessed me with a new perspective in working with children who can not and/or will not communicate in a conventional manner. So true, as a preschool teacher, in my experience with said children, I have had the motivation and patience for helping the these children communicate in their own way and make the effort to pick up on their cues and attempts at communication rather than forcing my own conceived conventions of communication on them. In doing so, I relate to the children in a different way and make it possible for them to feel safe and comfortable in situations and settings the otherwise would not. For the child, this develops an enormous amount of self esteem.
From aforementioned experiences with children couple with my own life experiences I am motivated to be an advocate for children (and adults) and make myself available to helping others cope with life forces which cause one to be perceived as unconventional by others or oneself. It is my belief, developed from experience, that all individuals are capable and competent, it is a matter of understanding one's individual conventions and making the effort to get on their level to make the connection; in doing so, we learn the most from those we least expect to learn from.
That being said, working with others provides one with a two fold opportunity, the first is the service provided to the other and the second growth in oneself. As I continue to grow each day, I look forward to the opportunity presented in such an internship as the one offered and the experience I will gain. Not only will this opportunity help prepare me for the future in a career as an art therapist, but it will also better equip me for my current work in infant/toddler, preschool, and elementary school classrooms. As an art therapist, I will have had a feel for the therapeutic field as a whole and attain a better understanding of the flow and necessary work in such a practice. Exposure to real life cases and the chance to dive into the work of helping such individuals will foreshadow what is to come in my own practice as an art therapist. As a teacher, such work will aide me in understanding the children of my classrooms in a different light and provide me with tools and alternative approaches to reaching both the majority of children and each child as an individual. With pleasure, I will take from this opportunity all that I can to both make me a better individual and a better professional.
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