Category: education 102

1. To start off, one of the major things I took away from the village project experience was how as an educator, you have the opportunity to have a positive impact on the youth, regardless of what ages you decide to work with. Sometimes you may not realize the impact you’re having, but it is certainly there and the students appreciate you, even when you might think this not to be the case. With my village project experience, I realized this when I started to tell the kids that I would see everyday that my last day was near and soon I wouldn’t be seeing them every Monday and Wednesday afternoon, and I could see the looks on their faces of disappointment that they wouldn’t be seeing me anymore. Gladness sensed that it happened but sadness that it had to end in what felt like such a quick period. This will help me as an educator when I start to feel like maybe I’m not making a difference in the lives of the students or that they don’t appreciate me, just because it’s not visible and apparent in everyday life. It will be important to know that the impact is there, you just might not know it at the time. 
2. Similar to past in-school volunteering experiences I had, whenever I left my village project site, I felt a sense of humility and accomplishment. It was almost like I was saying to myself, “Wow, I did something good today. I made a difference.” It doesn’t matter how my day has been going up to that point. Maybe I had been having a very busy day, and I felt at first that going to the village project was just another thing I “had” to do with my already busy schedule. Maybe I was just flat-out having a bad day because something went wrong with a class or I received a bad grade on a test. Or, perhaps I was having just a normal, good day. Needless to say, regardless of how I was feeling on each particular day, I walked away feeling better about myself and having that sense of humility and accomplishment. I think that this is something that I will resort back to once I am a full-time teacher. Regardless of what else is going on in my life outside of teaching, this is something that I will find rewarding and will boost me up if I am feeling down about other parts of my life. 
3. To kind of go along with #2 on the list, and the idea of it no matter how I feel when I go into a school, I always feel better afterward. My village project experience has also taught me that regardless of how I feel or what my mood is at that given time, these kids are relying on me and they need me. There were times during my village project experience when I maybe wasn’t in the best mood to be working with the kids because of other stressors going on in my life. But, there were the kids who were excited to see me because they wanted to tell me about their weekend or push them on the swing because they knew I would be intentional about listening to them, caring about them, and making them feel loved and cared for. I had to work on putting aside my feelings from other parts of my life outside the village project and focus on the present moment of the students and making sure I was giving them the attention they both needed and deserved. Because at the end of the day, if there are lots of other things happening outside of my life and it starts to impact my work with kids, this isn’t the kids’ fault. When it’s all said and done, they are counting on me, and I need to show up and deliver especially when they need me the most. This is another crucial concept that I took away from the village project experience. 
4. Shifting my focus in a slightly different direction, I interpreted some different behaviors during my village project experience. Some kids were sad and almost seemed depressed, and others were borderline wild and filled with energy. And also, oftentimes kids behaved differently depending on the day. Perhaps this had to do with what was going on at home, or with a teacher or student throughout the school day. Needless to say, it was noticeable from my perspective. Sometimes, I feel like when I see a kid that is quieter or seems down, I want to say to myself, “Maybe they just need some time alone.” Or, if a kid has a lot of energy, and perhaps too much, I’m half afraid to say something to them in fear of what they might say or how they might react. Another thing I’ve learned from the village project is that regardless of whether or not it is either one of these scenarios or something else- talk to the student. If they seem down, try to cheer them up, and if that doesn’t work, point them in the right direction that will make them feel better. If they are maybe a little wild and need to calm down a little bit, even if it may not seem too obvious- tell them to calm down appropriately. I think the moral of the story is- when in doubt, say something. Whether it is to the student or a staff member, say something, it will never hurt. 
5. Going along with this idea of behavior in the students, something significant that I realized during my village project experience was that if these kids misbehave or do something wrong- it isn’t their fault, or at least not completely. Not that it has to be anyone’s “fault” so to speak, but don’t blame it on the kids when they misbehave. They are at a stage of their life where growth and development are constant in different ways and they will hopefully learn from their mistakes. As a teacher, I cannot control what their level of behavior is when they come into my classroom, including how other teachers impact it or how their parents impact it at home. I can only control how I influence it, and of course, the goal would be to impact it positively by teaching them the proper mannerisms, through my actions and other specific examples. The goal will never be for them to have perfect behavior- that is impossible to happen from anyone regardless of how old they are. You can only influence it as much as possible and the best you can. I think the moral of the story is this- you can’t judge or blame kids for the behaviors they have, all you can do is control your energy on how you can impact their behavior for the better. 
6. I would say one aspect that was nice about my village project experience was that I had the opportunity to work with kids and have an impact on them, but I didn’t necessarily have the pressure of being completely responsible for them, as the staff members were always there if need be. I feel as though this allowed me, at least in the beginning, to get a visual representation of how to handle certain situations without having to handle them myself. All around, I feel as though the YMCA staff members handled situations fairly with students, using a proper amount of sternness when necessary and taking a more tender, softer approach when necessary as well. This is a key aspect that I learned and will apply to the time when I become a teacher, is that sometimes being a little bit more harsh and strict is the right way to get the point across and to get the students to learn something if they need to, otherwise, there are also circumstances when being a little bit less harsh and taking it more softly is more appropriate. In short, the matter of this lesson is that I learned that different situations will call for different ways to interact with the students, and it will be my job as a teacher to be able to properly identify what kinds of tones and actions are needed in these situations and apply them. 
7. One thing that I picked up on during my village project experience was that the kids, regardless of how old they are, pick up on the little things that they say and do, even when you wouldn’t expect them to. This is a very important thing to keep in mind, both for the better and for the worse. What I mean by this is that if you have good habits, such as proper manners, appropriate behavior, and appropriate language, they will notice that and likely start to act more that way themselves. Just the opposite, if you don’t do these things properly, they will notice that and won’t be afraid to call you out on it. I experienced examples both ways, where the students I was with would replicate the good behaviors I modeled to them, but if maybe I wasn’t doing something as good as I should have been, they would call me out on it and say something like, “How come you’re doing this?” (Or not doing it). The moral of the story with this lesson is that the students pick up on a lot of their little actions and decisions, whether they are positive or negative. They are watching many of your moves, and will likely model part of or all of their behaviors after yours. 
8. When you zone in on one region, say northeastern Wisconsin for example. There can be a lot of variance in the population of kids that you are working with in a lot of ways, from demographics to behaviors, to academic abilities, and so on. In high school, I volunteered at various elementary schools in the Kimberly Area School District, which is only about 30 miles or so south of Howe Elementary in the Green Bay Area School District, where I did my work with the village project. The populations of the kids I worked with at each of the two schools were quite different. Howe was culturally and ethnically diverse, whereas Kimberly was predominantly caucasian. I could tell that the kids at Howe maybe struggled a little bit more with behaviors and academics, whereas those issues weren’t as prevalent in Kimberly. They happened, but not as much or in as significant of a sense. I feel like I knew during high school that deep down, what happens at schools like Howe is the true reality of what happens at schools in America, but I just didn’t see it in high school as much because Kimberly was such a high-achieving district. I think another major thing I took away from this experience was that just because students in one place act a certain way, or have a certain level of intelligence at that time, doesn’t mean it can’t be a world of difference just a little ways down the road. Because in the grand scheme of things, Kimberly and Green Bay are pretty close to one another, and I saw two different situations during my time volunteering. In short, I think this will help me when I become a teacher in the sense that I will know that the kids I am working with aren’t like kids everywhere, regardless of who they are or what their skills and abilities are. It can vary a lot even between close areas, and all I can do is to try and help the kids I have the best I can to make them better people than they were when I first started with them. 
9. Another major takeaway from my experience in the village project is that inside of every kid, they are very smart, and know a lot of things academically. Inside them, they also know how to behave properly, treat others right, and demonstrate traits such as respect, kindness, honesty, and responsibility. It’s just that with some kids, it’s a lot deeper down in them than others, and you have to try harder to get it out of them or they have to work harder to get it out of themselves. With the students it is a little harder to get the proper behaviors and skills out of them, it doesn’t make them bad or worse than anyone else. When it comes to my future work as a teacher, I think this is when the idea of meeting the students where they are at comes into effect. This is where the kid is at in terms of learning and behaviors, so I must meet him or her at that point to get them to where we eventually want them to be. Not every student is at the same level developmentally, so I must meet them at whatever level they are to help them get to where they need to be. 
10. Last but not least, another thing that maybe goes without saying, but is certainly a very important thing I learned about myself throughout the village project is that even though this was a completely different group of kids that I was working with as opposed to previous experiences as I stated in my takeaway #8, I still realized that education is what I want to do with my life and even though I was opened up to a whole different side of reality with how children are, and some of the challenges they may face. It didn’t scare me away or make me want to take a different route with my choice of profession, I think if anything it did me a favor in the sense that it taught me some of the realities of what happens in public schools across the country. Of course, being that I could get into the classroom right away during Freshman year allows me to help ask myself the question of whether or not education is truly what I want to do with my life, and I can confidently say that this experience assured my prior thoughts that this is indeed something that I believe is suited for me. 

As a future educator, I have a certain philosophy with a set of concepts about teaching and learning. I wish the best for my students and want to do as much as I can to better their lives currently as well as set them up for a successful future. For these things to happen, I have this philosophy set in stone so I can dedicate myself to giving my students the best while keeping these important concepts in mind. These concepts make up my philosophy before taking Education 102.

One of these important concepts of mine is that you never stop learning. I have had very experienced teachers tell me that they were not even close to the same level of teaching as they were when they first started. This is because they constantly learn and look for ways that they can be better. People who are the best at what they do always strive to become more knowledgeable in whatever their field or passion is. Similarly, teaching is always evolving. You cannot expect to keep doing the same thing all the time, year in and year out, and get good and/or better results. In addition to that, it is almost certain that your teaching ways and habits will not be the best right away, or ever, so you must continue to grow your abilities in the classroom. This includes keeping an open mind to discover new things since this will enhance your ability to learn. This could also include admitting to being wrong and not being afraid to be wrong since mistakes are learning opportunities, which is a positive concept to model for your students in the classroom. 

Another very important aspect of my philosophy is that teaching and learning go hand in hand- you must be willing to learn to teach and to learn it will certainly benefit you to teach and lead others. This concept is also very important because you cannot teach without learning, as I previously stated. To have the ability to teach well, you must be willing to learn about different classroom skills and abilities and everything that being a strong educator entails. Going along with that, the best teachers are constantly learning ways in which they can be better role models for their students to help them succeed. The same goes when talking about learning; to learn about content of any kind, teaching it to others could potentially be instrumental in your success in learning. It helps to stimulate the brain and think about perspectives and situations in a variety of ways. Also, while you teach things to other people, they will be learning things, and you will be learning things, too. 

Another important concept in my philosophy of teaching is that both learning and teaching can be done enthusiastically. By teaching my students in a manner of enthusiasm, this will, by nature, help make them more enthusiastic about their learning. This could include doing fun activities either by themselves or in groups, scavenger hunts, word searches, small projects, games, and many other options to give students exciting ways to learn. It could also be helpful to give students little rhymes or catchphrases to help them remember the content in a fun way. My enthusiasm for teaching them will be felt by my students and this will make them more excited to learn. If I don’t present the content to them in an exciting way, or a way that is captivating to them, they won’t get as much out of their learning because it doesn’t interest them as much. This would be a major issue because the entire reason for students to be in school is to get their education, so if the content isn’t presented and taught to them in a captivating manner that will be suited well for them, it will make their educational experience more fun while still getting them to know what they need to know. 

Another important aspect of my philosophy is that learning and teaching take a lot of thinking and planning. From a teaching perspective, to get it done properly, it’s not something that can be done on the fly or with none or little thought. It takes a lot of time to plan and think out your content, your lessons, activities, etc. If you are deeply motivated to be the best educator you can be, you want to give the students your very best in many aspects. Another one of these aspects is planning out the content to be presented to them, the delivery of this content, keeping in mind time factors, as well as student needs and interests. To meet all of these criteria, it is important to take time and careful consideration to thoroughly plan these things out. Learning is a very similar concept. It takes time and critical, deep thinking on my end as an educator. Learning as an educator can be a wide variety of things, from different tactics to use to deliver content to the students, to learning how to build relationships with students and other faculty members, to changing up your lesson plans; it could go on. There is a lot of learning to be done as an educator, as there is a wide variety of concepts to learn about and a lot to learn about each one. To do this, it takes deep thinking. I will not be the best version of myself as an educator if I don’t push myself to think deeply when learning. 

One more concept that is quite significant to my teaching philosophy is that if I’m not doing (or, at the very least, trying to do) my very best work, day in and day out, regardless of what’s going on outside of the classroom (other than rare occurrences) I am not properly fulfilling my role as an educator. I place high importance on this as a future educator; if I’m not doing my very best to learn about teaching my students and giving them what they need, I am doing them a disservice. Anything other than my best is not going to be sufficient enough. My students would be getting cheated out of their education and it wouldn’t even be their fault. By putting forth my very best effort, both inside and outside of the classroom, and making no excuses to do anything other than my very best, my students will get the best out of their experiences in education. 

All in all, this set of concepts is what makes up my teaching philosophy. These are the values and principles that I want to stand close by when I officially become a teacher. Through personal experience and talking with experienced teachers, this is a set of concepts that will give me a strong foundation for a teaching philosophy to follow. Not that I won’t follow other positive ideas as a teacher, but these are values about teaching and learning that I plan to closely follow. 

Now, these 3 concepts are parts of my philosophy that I would add upon completion of the Education 102 class. They are as follows:

• Using things such as the games and simulations and the flipped lesson projects like we did in class to facilitate their learning and get them engaged in what they’re doing. I would be doing so in a sense where the students are learning but also engaged at the same time.
• I would remind the students, like the book “Why don’t children like school?” talks about, it isn’t about mastery but just trying to get better every day and also focusing on the process of learning and not just getting the right answers themselves.
• Finally, I want students to have the ability to move information from the working memory to the long term memory so they don’t learn something and then forget it right away. Using constant but different forms of practice will help students put learned information into their long term memory to prevent forgetting it. That way, their learning will be retained.