Final Post

Now that you have completed this course and the Service Learning component, what have you decided about becoming a professional teacher?  Do you think this is the career path for you?   Has the Service Learning helped influence your decision? What are your next steps? Write a thoughtful, 3-5 paragraph response to express your position.

     This service learning has really made me decide that teaching is what I want to do with my life. This has been a hard decision. I have gone back-and-forth for many years as to whether or not I wanted to be a teacher -- the money has always been a deterrent for me. Right now, I am paying money to go into a profession that will be paying me less than I make right now. However, every time I left the school for service learning I felt so fulfilled. My soul was filled with joy and I left EVERY TIME knowing that is where I am supposed to be. 

     Yes, I saw how hard it is for teachers as they try to maintain the focus of the students in the class and keep them on task. Yes, it is sometimes a thankless job and no one really care about the work you do but the administration -- and even they do not see all the work the teachers put in after hours. Yes, lesson planning and preparation is more time consuming than I had ever imagined. Yes, there are so many restrictions on you now that it seems hard to have fun with the students and find creative ways to involve them. Yes, there are going to be students who don't care, feel like they will never be able to succeed, and just have bad attitudes.. Yes, there will be days that I want to just crawl into a ball and be left alone. BUT, the look on a student's face when it clicks, or the students that are happy to be there and want to do well just make up for it. 

     During my elementary years, I was a problem child for many reasons: I was bored because it was too easy, I loved to talk because socializing was so important to me, I had issues at home, and I didn't have the structure in my life to understand the need to behave. So, I may be able to understand those children as they go through those same struggles. One of the biggest things I learned in service learning was that I needed to be able to meet the students where they were. If you cannot reach them on other levels besides educationally, you cannot reach them in that way either. I love the psychology of human development and I love the psychology of helping students learn. That is probably what I am most excited about. Teaching is not 2+2=4, or 1776, or what an earthquake is. Teaching is helping to develop leaders for the next generation. It is helping children identify who they are and what they can do in this world -- which is pretty much anything. Because of that I want to be a teacher.

     My next steps are taking the Praxis, finishing my prerequisites, and entering the program. This is what I want to do. This is what I was born to do. This is where I need to be in my life. I am glad I am doing this at this point in my life instead of earlier because I probably would not have the same outlook and maturity, I would be burnt out in three years, and I would have looked for another profession. This is going to be a rough journey, but I am ready for it. 

Post #8: Reflection

• Are you making connections between course topics and Service Learning?

I really have seen   a good connection between what we have been learning in the course and what I am seeing in Service Learning. It is really cool to see that what we learn about is actually practical and not just theory. What we are reading is not just nice ideas, but things that help teachers be successful. 

• Have you been able to articulate your own learning and understanding?  

Throughout this course, I feel like I have been able to talk about what I learned and not regurgitate information. Too often I feel that class designs are more towards the latter than the previous, but I really feel like what I have learned is what has come across on assignments, not what I have read.  

• Is the process of blogging helping you to think and notice things in your Service Learning?  

It has been great for reflecting. Sometimes I just go in and do it and don't pay too much cognitive thought to what is going on around me. The blogs make me think back and find examples of what I was actually witnessing. It also helped me form topics of discussion with the teachers the next time I saw them.  

• In what areas do you see growth or learning from the first blog post to the last?  

Not sure on this one. Because the topics have been so diverse, I don't feel like I can answer this one properly. What I will say though, is that the first blog post made me more aware of what Service Learning was for and so it helped me improve in that way. Other than that, I am not sure.

Entry #7

     I have seen the standards be addressed rather proficiently. They do a good job in every subject reaching them where they are and building them up to where they need to be. One think that I have noticed is that they stick to the main subjects of reading, writing, math, science, and history and try to mix in the other subjects when they can. Health is by far the least touched subjects and all teachers that I have talked to say that it is just hard to carve out tie for something that is not as pertinent to their learning. One way I have seen them use the other standards is by incorporating them int a lesson about a core standard. One exampled was when a teacher had them do an art project when they were talking about erosion in the science unit.

     A major consensus among teachers is that their is good and bad to standardized testing. One teacher had said that she likes the idea because it is good to see where the students are and what they have to focus on teaching better either later in the school year or next school year.  The negative she pointed out what that the standard is not set to calculate for learning disorders or other issues that the students have. This sometimes makes students feel that they are not as good as other and are defeated mentally and sometimes give up on themselves too soon. Also, that the teachers are unfairly measured  by these scores because the students in every class, at every school is different. She stressed that there needs to be a way to measure the success of students and teachers beyond the tests, and she is glad that there are currently, and that they are looking to improve it.