Introduction Letter

Hello, my name is Becky Roudebush and I grew up in North County, San Diego. My family and I lived in Oceanside until I was in fourth grade. I attended Garrison Elementary School. My parents felt that Carlsbad had better schools, so we moved there when I was about 10 years old. Growing up in Carlsbad was great! My friends and I had so much fun riding our bikes around town and going to the beach in the summer. I attended Valley Buena Vista Elementary School for fifth and sixth grade and then went to Valley Junior High for seventh and eight grade. I graduated from Carlsbad High School. I did not go far from home to attend college since I was paying for it myself. Mira Costa College is where I finished my undergraduate classes and then I transferred to California State University at San Marcos. At CSUSM I received my BS in Biology. My plan was to get into US Davis in their Veterinary program, however after only applying once and getting denied, I decided to move on with my life.

My exposure to technology is somewhat limited. I have always been PC person but do enjoy learning and working with the mac. I feel that I am savvy with some things and always open to learning more. In my home I am "tech support". I mainly use the computer for email, web and publishing. I have Windows 7 and although it has been challenging to figure some things out with the program, I do like it! I am also the newsletter editor for the school my daughter attends, Hannalei Elementary. I put out a 4-5 page paper every other month. This requires a lot of emailing back and forth between members of the PTA, teachers and staff. I have learned so much just with trial and error in MS Publisher.

As a previous student at CSUSM, I have always appreciated the school's mission to strive for diversity and equality. Now as a returning student, I feel the College of Education statement is most important to emerging teachers. As the education system has evolved from the one room classroom to what it is today, incorporating equality and social justice is most important. I also believe that we as teachers should always be striving to better ourselves through life-long learning as stated in the mission statement. Although I did not choose COE at CSUSM because of their mission statement, I however feel it is a strong statement and one that I agree with.