Going back to my high school was so weird, but so fun. I went to a basketball game to see how the program was holding up. My high school P.E. teacher was there and so I got a great chance to sit and talk with her about what I was experiencing and also questions that I had about teaching in the high school setting. First, I asked her how bad of a student I was in P.E. She said that I was just a funny kid who loved to play. We did have a lot of fun times in that class. She was surprised when I told her I was going into P.E. Teaching because she knew I was Sports Ministry at my previous school. It's crazy how people can know you for a while or just a little bit and when you tell them something they say, "Oh I can see that." It was nice to know that she had that faith in me. She told me that I had to make sure and put my foot down when it came to kids acting out in class or enforcing rules. I asked her what her favorite thing is about being a P.E. teacher. She said that it was probably wearing sweats everyday. I mean who doesn't love that? My teacher really made Physical Education fun for me and I am truly thankful.
Academic Contacts: Susan LeVasseur Peg Kelly Wayne Priest Rhonda Pew Barb Carbaugh Anna Clark Caryn Huntsman Tom Bergler Steve Wiktrowski Pam Hayes Kris Miller Connie Updike Rhonda Henry Sister Mary Anne Smith Geri Yost Luke Fetters
I got to know a little different perspective that I had not really thought about when it came to teaching in schools. One article I read talked about how schools were looking overseas to hire teachers and that in 2007, 19,000 foreign teachers were in the United States on temporary visas. There are more than three million in America's public schools. In 2005, Baltimore Public Schools hired 108 teachers from the Philippines (10 percent of the teachers). The article took a quote from a report which read “Rather than attending job fairs throughout the Mid-Atlantic, trying to persuade reluctant American teachers to accept positions in troubled inner-city schools, H.R. officials can meet all their hiring needs in one trip." They've done this because of how much success has come from it in the past. Other top states in the U.S. who have a lot of teachers with temporary visas include: Texas, Georgia, New York, & California. Think for a second about just how diverse those states can be. California has Los Angles, Oakland, and many other large cities. The second article I looked at talked about the affects of kids going to innter-city schools. Educational psychologists wanted to know how to educate students better and just how much of their learning was influenced (directly and indirectly) by their surroundings. The community involvement, parental involvement, as well as the teacher involvement are three big things that contribute to a students' life. It talked about how much kids look up to those above them and look for guidance. Also, there was the idea of integrating things that the students enjoy, making it more interesting for them.
Interviewing two students and two teachers, I found certain things that should brought up when it comes to how students learn. First of all, students like when you get to know them. One student I interviewed said she thought that certain teachers in high school did not like her because they never really said anything to her. Some of them were engaging, and she enjoyed their classes for the most part. The other student said that in high school, her teachers were engaging, but most so in certain classes. She said her history and art teachers made learning very fun and interesting. As I asked the teachers what types of learning are in their classrooms, I got smiles from them. They are both second grade teachers and have been at this particular school for a number of years. I've been in a few classrooms these last two years, plus my mother's classroom, but they have taught and influenced so many lives. Being at a Christian school, they said they love who they are working for and being in this environment (even though it does not pay as much). One teacher said that she loves doing the "water books" with her kids and for some of them, it is their favorite activity of the whole year. She loves this age group and it has taken her teaching a few different grades to find which grade she believes she is the best to teach. The second teacher is in another second grade class and talked about a couple kids who had gone to school the previous year in an inner-city school. The parents decided that the extra money was worth having their child at that school. This was an interesting thing I got from talking to her.
