Changing the future one child at a time (week 5)

Here we are back, this week I want to write about why I am going into teaching and why I think this is such an important call on ones life.  In Colossians 3:23 it states "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters" Even though we will be working for a school and for the parents that are sending us their children, our true boss is the Lord.  Jesus was always talking about having the faith of a child, and letting the children come to him. A lot of people look down on the younger generations and forget about the great potential and how they are the future leaders of our world. Us as teachers we get to teach and encourage our future leaders. This is such an amazing calling! So my question was why do so many teachers quit or why do so many people tell me not to become a teacher? There is an article that The Guardian published titled "Five top reasons people become teachers -- and why they quit"
This article went through the reasons teachers quit and some of them surprised me, the most surprising is that teachers felt underappreciated. This made me sad because I personally think teachers can and will make such a huge difference in a child life and I hate that they are not feeling appreciated. I know that I loved my teachers and they had such a positive influence on my life. My prayer for the teachers of today is that they feel valued and appreciated, that they see the calling that God has placed on their life and they know that they are doing His will by loving on and teaching the younger generation.  Along with this one of the top reasons that people do become teachers is to make a difference.  This is why I am becoming a teacher, I want to change the future one child at a time.  Especially as a Christian educator, I could be the only person that is a positive Christian influence in a child's life and I do not want to take that lightly.  Lets keep up the hard work and start changing the future one child at a time!

teach students not subjects (week 4)

I feel like every day I am thinking and dreaming of the day I have my own classroom. As I get closer to my practicum hours and student teaching it gets me excited but also I feel nervous to have a whole class to myself. Ever since I was a child I have dreamed of the day that I have my own classroom, I would even set up class and create assignments for my stuffed animals! That was how serious I was about my classroom that even my stuffed animals had homework.  This week though I wanted to research and read about what it is really like to be an elementary school teacher. I came across an article that was titled exactly what I was looking for, "What it's really like to be an elementary school teacher" published by CTI Career Search. The cool part about reading what they wrote was that it was practical and great advise for someone who is preparing to be a teacher.
The article wrote about how teachers are not in the profession for the money, this is what everyone knows. As a teacher we know we will not be paid a lot but we do get to see fruit in our students lives and this is what their second point was; that kids are the best. I do fully agree with this, I have always loved kids and cannot wait for the day that I have my own. As I continued to read on it talked about the struggles of teaching including some parent interactions, or the paperwork but my favorite part about the article is that it talked about ways to prepare for becoming a teacher. One of the things they talked about was following and observing a teacher. This will really give you a taste of what you are getting into, then the last part that they wrote about was tips on teaching. What really stuck out to me was that they said use technology and make it your best friend. I thought this was awesome especially because that is what this class is about.  Lastly they talked about how we teach students and not subject. This is what I really want to take away this week is that yes we will be teaching subjects but really we want to be focusing on how the students are doing and how we can help them learn what we are teaching better. This is really what our job is and it is such a special vocation. Excited to dig deeper into our career paths.

Why should we use technology in our classroom?

       Welcome back to my blog! Here I go again talking about how we as future teachers and leaders of our future can help and assist our little ones in the ways of the world but as Christian educators. Something that I thought a lot about this week is with our changing world and having technology in so many aspects of our students lives, shouldn't we try and not use technology in the classroom so they can learn to do things on their own? After browsing the internet and reading some articles written by other teachers I found out and concluded for myself that I will incorporate it into my classroom. The article that I want to pull from a little bit is "13 reasons for using technology in the classroom" by Jacqui Murray.
      One of the most interesting parts of her post was that she discussed how the internet and technology can benefit every child. I had never fully grasped this idea or understood it. What Jacqui talked about was how "the creative student can use art and music. Those who love words can write. Visual learners can use a combination of color, images and personal drawings." (13 Reasons for using technology in the classroom) This blew my mind, I had never thought about it this way, but this is so true, technology and the world we live in today is making it easier for different people to learn the same subject in a way that works best for them. Another part that I want to touch on briefly is how students want to use technology. Since this is such a huge part of our life now, why would we not use technology? Especially when our students are wanting to use it, we can use this "want" to benefit what we want to be teaching. By allowing our students to research for themselves and learn how to critically think and search for educational documents, this allows them to learn this important skills early on which will help so much when they get into the higher levels of education.
     I know for me personally I was not into the whole idea of using technology in the classroom but in many verses in the Bible it talks about being in the world but not of the world. Sometimes we are going to have to keep up with the world and technology is one of those things. It has revolutionized the world we know and is going to keep pushing forward, we have to keep up to date so we can fully run after every person on our beautiful planet for the glory of God.
   Thanks for tuning in, I know we as teachers can have such a huge impact on a child's life and we should not take this lightly. Lets keep up with the world so we can keep spreading the love of God.

my future classroom

      So this whole blogging thing is a little new to me but I am going to give it a try, this week I have been wishing and dreaming of the day that I will be able to have my own classroom and my own students that will look to me and call me Miss Simmons.  I was observing this week and the teacher ran out in the middle of classes to run to the bathroom, while she was out all the students were walking in and asking if I was the substitute. Anxiously waiting for the teacher to come back I quietly would reply "No Mrs. Edwards will be back in a minute" What I noticed and loved about this teachers classroom was that she had a smart board and the use of technology was integrated into her classroom along side activities that did not include technology.  While searching for an article for this assignment I knew I wanted to learn more about how to incorporate technology into my teaching, I stumbled upon an article called "Technology and Teaching: Finding a Balance" This was exactly what I needed!
      While reading through the article, it discussed how in this world there is no job and really nothing we can do where we will not come in contact with technology and the important part is knowing how to find a balance.  What the author talked was how we need to show students a good way to read online and build up our students literacy skill levels, meaning we need to help them learn how to read and understand what they read by questioning, analyzing, and interpreting whatever they are reading.  The article then went on to layout three ways that the author used to incorporate the technology into her classroom.  She talked about a Edmodo which is a way to connect other teachers and parents together to collaborate together and make teaching the best that it can be.  They also discussed using Google sites and Google Drive. I especially love the use of Google Drive, this can be such an easy way to share and save documents from lessons and it will not take up space on your computer because it is all online.  The cool part about reading this article is that these are all practical ways that we as teachers can easily use technology and share things with each other.
     After pondering and thinking over how I want to use technology in my classroom, I realized just how many papers we use every day for one class! This author was genius when she set up a Google Drive account for all her students to share their documents with her online. It saves time, makes sure we don't lose papers, and saves paper and paper can get expensive. Just a few of my thoughts...Thanks for reading.