Not perfect but who cares its too late now and I’m ok with it

To whom it may concern ,

I want to be one of those teachers who has something different to teach. I would really like to incorporate more of the arts into my curriculum . My reason for wanting to go on this travel study program is so that I can expand as individual and as Teacher . I can only be a good teacher if I have something worthwhile to teach . Frankly the standard curriculum these days isn't very full of intrinsic value .

I want my classroom to be full of art and books, not cheesy inspirational posters that don't make sense to 10 year olds . I really want to have a better perspective of the world so that when I teach I will understand what I am talking about. I will be able to share my love of art on a deeper level than textbooks. I want to share the intrinsic value s with Right now most of my favorite paintings are so popular everyone In the world has seen a copy of them. Starry Night and the Water Lilies are my two favorite pieces and I have done interpretations of both of them . I put my house in the village in starry night it doesn't rally fit in , but I wanted to put something of me in it. I need to expand my knowledge of art so that I have a greater breadth of understanding. I love drawing pictures based on my favorite paintings since I am not a genius and cannot compose a masterpiece myself. I have always been obsessed with beautiful things in nature and art is where I find things that make me happy. I have taken millions of photos of beautiful flowers. I am a dreamer who needs aesthetics in my life. They make me happy maybe I'm to easily influenced by my environment but I am happier when I'm surrounded by art. I think being immersed in other cultures would expand my view of the world.

For the rest of my life I will be able to give insight to children on what it is like to be a visitor in a different culture. I have never been any where people don't speak English. So many children in my classroom will be nonnative English speakers. I want to be able to understand what they are going though .

I have been to all the museums I can here and I just want to see more. Last time I went to the Portland art museum I realized I had been there four times and at my current level of understanding and knowledge of history I couldn't learn any more from there. Other museums I loved were in San Francisco. in Hawaii I made my family go on a tour of the museum at the royal place. (which by the way was the first country to install electricity in the palace .) I want to see more. I want to be inspired. In addition, I want to be able to inspire generations of children.

I was inspired by many teachers of mine who taught me to expand my horizons. I want to expand horizons for others. I seek the horizon expanding experiences of being a language minority in a foreign country ; learning to ride public transportation across a city; understanding and learning to love other places. Right now in my life my opinion of the world is very biased. My favorite places are my home in Corvallis, Oregon and Kauai in Hawaii and my grandma's house in California . You can only love where you have been .

This group of positive and spiritual people will be a great learning environment . I don't want to go to Europe as a tourist. I want to go to Europe to learn, not to be lazy bystander gawking at everything . I have a few selfish reasons for wanting to go . don't get me wrong I have some fun things I want to get out of this trip I want to make friends with people who love these things as much as I do. I can never get my friends to go with my to events on campus That I think sound cool. To them the art gallery isn't very exciting . I want to go see the water lilies in the round and talk to people who think that's exciting. I want to eat yummy food too maybe even go shopping .Never mind I probably won't have money to go shopping . Learn to say where is the bathroom in three languages . Take a enough photos for my blog to update all the time .

what I am trying to say is I want this to help me grow but I want to have a fun experience too.

Thank you,

Michelle Lanae Walker