Reflective Blog #1

When my English teacher attacked me with a longsword in fourth period, I knew I would love high school English. Mrs. Gregg had brought the Society for Creative Anachronism to help us better understand and connect to our British literature course. It worked, I will never think of Beowulf the same way, or forget the how to use a semicolon. Education is about motivation, better-quality learning, and technology is the key to everything.
Education prepares students to face their world and interact with new stimulus. Just as people train their muscles to perform athletic feats, or gain strength; or even as people train themselves to sing or play an instrument. We can train our minds with reading, writing, and mathematics. Overtime, we can learn to interact with any discipline from a foreign language, or journalism, to art and geometry. Through learning, in and out of the classroom, we discover or talent and we expand our capabilities to challenge ourselves and others.
Teachers work as nurturers and providers; when they gather knowledge and lay it out at the students’ feet. However, their job does not end there, teachers are coaches as well, encouraging and motivating students to learn. Finally, Teachers function as clearinghouses, testing and trying the students’ abilities to retain and master their knowledge and skills.
It seems that students have both a passive role and an active part to play as well. Passively, students are blank canvases and empty vessels to be filled. Teachers must prepare appropriate lessons that are filled with relevant and superior content, or the student cannot fulfill their potential. Moreover, the student must be induced to actively acquire their education. Students that do not learn actively do not practice their lessons, and cannot tie the classroom to other areas of their life soon forget what they are taught. Students that integrate lessons into their life are changed by the concepts, proficiency and abilities they have acquired.
As a teacher, I have to motivate and educate my students. Unlike collegiate arena, all of my students are mandated to be involved in the classroom. This, I believe changes some of my goals in the classroom. First, I must motivate students to learn; students must see that the learning they do involves them personally. I value technology, exactly because it lends relevance to education. Many students today use social networking and Web 2.0, and some studies published in mainstream media suggest that the computer savvy teen has a mind that is hardwired to understand typing and web-based technology more easily than they can use a pen to write. Second, a teacher needs to present the most timely and best information possible; students need superior content to prepare themselves mentally and emotionally for the world around them. Finally, teachers must test students for mastery. By testing the students, teachers can evaluate their performance. If students cannot master the subject of study then they have not been motivated properly or they do not have adequate information.
My classroom will firstly, be based on computer literacy. Students in today’s world will come across web-based classroom experiences. They will see the integration of their computers, televisions, cameras, and cell phones. In this new situation, students must be taught how to verify content on the internet; they need to discover what sources they can trust in cyberspace and which they cannot. Google and “Link” searches should be taught in the classroom. Technology like Interactive Whiteboards can help introduce classic literature. When possible, students should use email to turn in test and homework, and eReaders to study textbooks and reading assignments.
I think that I have few expectations of the learning community. Mostly, being new and inexperienced I think that I have little judgment on the situation. I expect students to be deeply uninterested in English if I do not create meaningful connections to them and their interests. I expect my colleges to be caught in an information gap, some teacher very unwilling to change, and other already light-years ahead of the latest technology available in that classroom. I expect librarians, especially newly trained librarians to be the greatest resource in my classroom. Of myself, I expect this career to be very challenging and very hard, but I think that I will have a wonderful time teaching my students about English and learning about technology from them.
My least favorite teacher in school did not want to be a part of what I was learning. Because, she had no motivation I learned nothing. However, I know that by developing technology to motivate and interest my students, I will be able to teach them and aid them in mastering the content and discover themselves.