The way I see myself being a fantastic teacher is by connecting Social studies to how and why we live the life that we do. I want my students to think about the struggles our country or a specific culture has gone through for you and me to live the kind of life that most can only dream of. I totally believe in the "learn the past so we dont repeat the same mistakes in the future" routine, I think that on a daily basis I try to compare what happens to the past.
When I think about "loving Children" I think about an old coach I had in Portland who took kids under his wing, be a father figure and guide them to become someone, not just anyone. I want to accomplish even a fraction of what he has done, and the way i can do this is through educating the youth. Another reason I want to teach is so that I can coach. I believe that students can learn a lot from playing sports, respect, honor, teamwork, and sportsmanship. To me life can be very competitive and individuals can learn about this through playing sports.
I think that looking back on the students that I have helped, even if it was just a couple is enough reason for me to sustain being a teacher. If I help one student/child per year, that is more than i could help pushing papers or working in the business world.
The idea of loving and helping children is hard to think about. If we as teachers try to hard to help we may cause more problems then cure them. We need to connect to the students to be able to possibly help them. Loving students will only work if we can keep the teacher/students relationship. We as teachers must keep the love for the individuals as our job, we must care, but we must be role models, we must be able to treat all with equality.
Developing lessons with "Good Multicultural Teaching" is very important in classrooms today. I think for to long out TEXT BOOKS have not given a good view of what students should know. I think with the knowledge that us teachers have we can educate our students on issues of the past with new references. Whether the issues are of difference race, sex, culture, we need to broaden our views to incorporate many different angles on the same topic.
I really enjoyed reading your post. The quote from your "old coach" really struck me. To be "someone, not just anyone" is a really unique way to look at self-determination.
ReplyDeleteI thought a lot about the question of what was going to sustain me as a teacher and I noticed that you and I answered this very differently. Having been out in the private business sector I have heard so many people complain about how poorly our teachers teach and how over paid they are. You might want to think about how these kind of comments might effect you, as a teacher, if you hear them either from friends or strangers.
Thanks for sharing.
It is interesting because I answered pretty much the same way about how to keep sustained. I couldn't find any other words to describe it and I hope that we can hang onto that view. I think down the road it will be hard to really remember that. I liked how you talked about the different angles we can see topics besides the textbook view. I think studying those different angles is interesting and your students will be interested too.
ReplyDeleteI would have appreciated a teacher who made history relevant to me rather than simply questions in the back of the book...It is great to have role models who show you how to love in the context of students and players. I agree that showing you care and treating your students fairly will go a long way with them. Certainly as a teacher of social studies, multiple perspectives of events as well as conceptions of race, gender, etc. will be an important aspect of what you do.
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