Introduction to Who I Am

My name is Sam Lopaze and I am an Educational Studies major with a Political Science track for my focus.  This will be my 4th college degree and I obviously love being a life-long learner. I am a stay-at-home father by day and make Ride-Share dreams come true by night, which has paid for 100% of my coursework at Arizona State University.

Coming in to this course I have held career-type positions, but never was satidfied with what I was doing. While going to community college i worked for a recreation department in Connecticut for 8 years before working in a special education capacity in East Lyme, CT as a Teacher’s assistant and Para-professional as a one-to-one aide to children with behavioral problems.  I'm a “retired” correctional officer for the great State of Connecticut to move out west and start a family. I was an inside sales representative at Solar City, now Tesla Energy, but left to be a stay-at-home father to an incredible daughter while driving Uber at night to make extra cash.  I am currently exceling at that position as as a stay-at-home-father to TWO incredible children and going back to school to get my second bachelor’s degree in education.

My professional goal in the short and long term is to become a teacher when my children are of school age. I look forward to working with any grade, in any school, but i would really like to teach american government, political science, or business (my prior college degrees are in these subjects) at the secondary level.

After taking Educational Psychology for Non-teachers II will be a better prepared educational professional ready to better serve my students, community, and own children and have a better understanding of the benefit educational psychology plays in the community.

MY COMMUNITY:

I am most interested in the impact educational psychology has on Las Vegas, NV, specifically the 89123 zip code.  I am most involved in that community because it is where my family currently lives and where we just purchased our first home.

It is comprised of family oriented neighborhoods with public parks, pools, and libraries.  Through my personal experiences I have realized the difficulties my neighbors are struggling with and that those are not problems that are not unique to my zip code, or to any one family. What is beautiful about my community, through the interactions with fellow parents, people working in social settings (the grocery store, the library, retaurants, etc...), and other service industry positions , is that most people here are from different socioeconomic classes, backgrounds, cultures and parts of the world, but most of us seem to share the same goals in life; happiness.

The zip code of 89123 in Las Vegas, Nevada is in what is known as the Paradise borough in Clark County.  According to TownCharts.com the census of data collected between 2010 and 2019 found that 60,679 people lived in my zip code, which increased 4,300 over the 10 year span (n.d.).  64.9% of the population is Caucasian14.9% is of Asian descent, 5.9% is Black or African America, and 12.9% is made up of other races (Zip code, n.d.).  

Whereas the ethnic makeup of the community is disproportionately skewed white, the what is percieved as the real problem is the disparity between median incomes of men and women. While the education level found on the charts when researching my community seemed even acrtoss the genders, as seen to the right women make about $9,000 less than man on the average.

Application to my future career: My purpose in life is to ensure educational opportunity is available to everyone, no matter age, race, gender, or socioeconomic class.  I will use my advocacy and organizational skills to ensure that if individuals invest the time and energy to learn they will reach their maximum potential.

What I learned in this course can easily be applied to my future career as a social sciences teacher in some capacity in a secondary educational setting is simple; I can see the impact educational psychology has on a community which has many of the same problems, factors, and influences of those around the country.