Blog Post 15 Part 1

This is probably the most difficult post I have made in this class. I am sure that people who always knew they were going to teach would have plenty to say in this paragraph. I, however never thought that I would be going into the teaching field. I've been through a lot of circumstances in my life, good and bad, that have brought me to where I am today. Anyway, without going into details, I started working as a substitute teacher. I found I could identify with high school students the best. This was probably because, my son just graduated from high school last year. My major in college was actually Social Work, but I found out I hated this one class called Policy. I love history especially World War II. I ended up having a lot of the classes I needed for Secondary Education (Social Studies), so here I am.
This class has been helpful in giving me ideas about teaching. I think that we can have all the ideas we want. We really will not know what we will actually be able to implement until we are there. I'm not in my twenties, so it is really difficult for me to have this fantasy classroom in my mind made up of rainbows and sunshine. Especially since I have a teenage son and I have spent plenty of time substituting unruly high school students. I think my classroom is going to depend on what kind of funding the school has, and how on board they are with technology in the classroom. Since, I have no mentors, and I am pretty much on my own, this is just the way I see things.
Probably one of my favorite ideas (all semester) was the idea of flipping the classroom. It was appealing to me, because of the problems my own son faced trying to navigate high school. I really like the theory that it works for all students even the ones who are struggling to understand the concepts being taught everyday. The program is self paced and allows students to watch videos outside of the class to learn the concepts before they get to class. They would be able to email me and other students with questions. This leaves classroom time for actually working instead of just lecturing. The classroom is separated into groups by where they are at in the material. This allows all students to be engaged and challenged. This is appealing to me, because it helps all students even the ones who are prepared to work faster then the others.
I hope with this class under my belt, and at least two more years in school, I will have a better idea of what my class will look like, in the near future. The classrooms I have substituted in are just bare shells. So, there is not much inspiration coming from there. I have also never substituted in a classroom where all students had access to a computer. Don't get me wrong, this class has offered up a lot of ideas, but it is like system overload, because there is so much to take in and commit to memory. With that said, (at my age) I really do not see myself in a classroom for long. My plan is to return to South and get my Master's in School Counseling. So, I will still be in a school setting, but helping students on a more one on one basis.