Expanding My KnowledgeEducation 205 has been an amazing experience. My professor, Dr. McCarthy was an inspirational man that expressed his passion and shared his knowledge of education with the entire class. Throughout the course he made us discover the beauty of education from the first day. In each class he gave us ideas of what to do in our future classrooms,and showed us what to expect as teachers and gave us an insight of what education truly upholds; especially in urban environments. I was excited to take this class because it was going to be my first educational course in my freshman year. I’m very glad I took it with Dr. McCarthy and feel very accomplished. In this class we all created a website on Weebly that embraces just a surface of the entire class. At the end of this course I feel that I can realized the difference between being an effective teacher or an ineffective teacher and it helped me reflect on my past teachers and learn from their mistakes.
I truly got the chance to reflect on my own about my decision of being a future educator with the assignments completed. Finishing this course ensured me that I have to work hard to be a better writer and student for I can one day help others (students) to discover their own needs and roads. Now I’m sure it’s a desire I unquestionably have inside of me. I want to help build a greater generation. Teachers are the future of this country. Without teachers many people would not spend their own time getting the knowledge we need to think clearly and make remarkable choices. In this class I understood how important a teacher is and it made me reflect on what type of teacher I wanted to become one day. From day one, Dr. McCarthy defined how a classroom should feel. It should have a sense of community; he expanded this idea by the way the seats were set up into various groups, like in grammar school. He showed us the different characters we would encounter in a classroom as well—when we went to the gym as class to play a game and worked as a team. After the games he made us think about how in our class we will have leaders and followers. With this activity I also learned the differences between passive and active learning. Passive learning is when you do something regularly or in a more traditional form. Active learning is when the lesson is made alive and students comprehend the lesson better. Active learning seems to be enjoyed more than passive learning just because it’s more interactive. I learned that I myself have to not be a passive teacher even in my worst days because it’s not about how I feel but about what my students will need to learn. Throughout the course, we were expected to read some professional literature. With three books I was exposed to real classrooms in the book. Besides my professor’s everyday tips; like having your eyes on the whole class at all times, we would discussed the reading has a class or have gallery walk; it’s an activity where you go around the room and read what the rest of the class thought about the reading. Together we concluded some most effective ways of handling a situation. For example we are to inform ourselves once we are given a class, with each children’s past medical records to avoid any problems. In this course I became aware of two different types of schools, a public and private. As a class we visited these two schools, first we went to Public School 8 and then to Riverdale Country School. There were big differences between these two schools, starting off with the tuition to attend in PS 8 was free but in Riverdale Country School, a kindergartener pays about 40,000 a year. In everything my professor tried to demonstrate the different expectations when dealing with our country’s education system and the differences between social classes and the community around the school. We were also put to reflect about which school would we work in and which one would we really make more of a difference in a child’s life. It was very beneficial to actually go to these schools just to observe the differences. With these visits I also encounter the meaning of ‘spaces’ in the classroom being necessary for a better school experience. Especially after reading To Teach The Journey, in Comics we then told each other what we would have in each of our classroom to make a classroom feel like home. Reflecting off each other helped me understand which choice would benefit my future class first then myself. This class as prepared me for the worst possible scenario after discussing the issues about children taking weapons to school to protect themselves around their own neighborhoods. I learned a lot from Dr. McCarthy he taught us that as teachers we give ‘opportunity and access’ and in every school environment I have to try to understand first before I start judging others or the situation. |
Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family. -Kofi Annan |