Setting Goals

To achieving any kind of dream that you might have hoped for yourself most people have set goals for themselves to achieve their desires.  Goal setting gives you an opportunity to shoot for something worth shooting for.  Goals remind you that something is worth fighting for even when the going gets tough.

In teaching we must set goals almost every day.  If a day goes by with out setting a goal previously educators will fall in to the cruising stage, where they just try to get by.  Educators who set goals find themselves accelerating not only themselves but also their students in learning.  You can see where you want to go and what its going to take to get their with minimal amount of distractions.  Everyone must set goals to fulfill their dreams.

Family

There is one thing constant in my life and that is family.  I have a strong belief that family is the glue in everyones life that hold everything together.  When the going gets tough families get closer.  That is a little thing that everyone should remeber, Expecially when you become a teacher.

I know that becomeing will have its downs but we must find refuge within the family.  Unlike in the book Freedom Writers, I will put my family first before any job that I do.  Even though the kids that I will be educating will be extremely important to me as well, since many will think of me as a role model.

Don't forget where you came from.

Gunderburger

Tonight, me and the 9 other wrestlers drove to the small town of Gunder.  There at a local bar, The Irish Shanty, they have a massive 20 oz hamburger named the Gunderburger.  It is always a struggle to eat the entire burger with a side of potatoes.  Still even after 3 hours after consuming, I can still feel the hunk of food lodged in my belly.  Its not a very pleasant feeling.

But what can be worse than this feeling, probably two Gunderburgers.  My roommate, has successfully taken down two Gunderburgers with sides.  For 2 days he said that he was not hungary and had become dehydrated.  Though I do not recommend two burger it is a must to experience this little delight in a small town of Gunder.

Wrestling

Why did I choose wrestling as my sport of choice in college? Why didn't I choose a less body intensive sport?  Wrestling is full of pushing your body to the limit and beyond.  Running, lifting, practicing, cutting weight, and putting in so much time for what? Sometimes I wish I would of choose the sport of track or football or even baseball.

Well in wrestling, I felt the most achievement when I stepped on the mat and walked off as the victor.  Many people have not looked into another's eye and knew that it would be a battle between each other before a victor would be chosen.  Not bashing on any other sport but I have enjoyed the individual side of the sport.  I can not point blame at anyone else for my failure but I can also take all the credit for my victory.  I do believe that hard work will always end in a victory maybe not on the mat but in life.  Teaching takes hard work and intensiveness and because of my wrestling experiece I believe that I am ready for the challenge.

Respect

Thinking back to my days back in high school, I can recall many times where I would pull "pranks" on my teacher or just give them a hard time.  When I think harder about it, I can see that I only gave a select few teachers a hard time.  The others I was respectful and in my eyes a good and fun student.  But why the difference in behavior? Was it because the subject wasn't my favorite?

No, the reason why some teacher got respect from me was because they gave me respect first.  The teachers who did not judge me becasue of my brother, or judged me because I was a little bit excited to be with my friends again in the first week recieved an equal respect from me.  I feel that teachers have the power to make a classroom full of respectful students if they set their ways to respect the students for who they are.

Motivation

As many might find out about me, I strongly believe that motivation is one of the most import tools that an educator can have in his/her classroom.  Motivation can work in many ways for you in classroom and in life.  If you can motivate students to learn and work hard at what they do they will not only accomplish what you expect them to do but they will exceed well beyond.  They will have the heart and desire to accomplish something for themselves and for others.  I see in some classrooms that I have observed that unmotivated students sit in their desks and dread every passing moment.  When you see that a teacher has the power to motivate the students they seem to respect that specified teacher, and they also excel at tasks in front of them.

When these students leave the classrooms for the last time, they will remember those teacher who pushed them to become something better.  They will take that motivation you gave them to motivate other around them.

Economic Issues

As a concerned citizen of the United States, I felt that I needed to learn more about this crisis that has hit our nation.  Luther college held a panel discussion, concerning these enconomic hard times.  They said that many organizations are jumping into large of a debt where they will have a difficult time getting out of the mess.  Why does this affect me as an educator.

Well, when I do graduate from Luther College I will be left with an enormous debt, but I will also be left with a degree that should help me get a job.  Now that many organizations are in debt and many bailouts are getting paid out, this means there will be less money for education.  Even if some of the stimulus gets to the schools, it will have to be paid back sooner or later.  This will put many schools in a possition of consolidating and/or laying off teachers.  Many students should be a little frightened that they might have trouble finding a job.

The Delicate Brain

In our trip to Decorah Middle School, I had no idea what to expect from the speaker we were about to listen to for an hour long.  Now, that I am use to some of my lectures at Luther College I was afraid that it might be a long hour.  To my surprise it was quite the opposite.  The lecturer was very enthusiastic and was very interested in her topic.  Some students said that it was too childish, or too exciting.  But can someone be too enthusiastic?

I don't think so.  When I look back to the classes that I enjoyed the most in school.  They were the classes that I tried the hardest at.  But what made these classes fun to participate in, well the teachers were excited to teach.  As teachers we must show our excitement for the subject because teaching should not feel like a job, but a privilege for the chance to effect lives of many young people.

Class Videos

These past few weeks, we have been working on videos that take books that we read and turned them into informational videos for educators.  In our video, our goal was to simply show 4 points to educators to make there classrooms more effective and efficient.  I do believe that our video was very well organized and easy to follow, and teachers who watched the video would be able to see what areas they may need to improve.

Overall this assignment was a great learning project.  It taught us to work together as a group by collaborating each of our ideas together.  Just like in the teaching environment, we as educators are going to have to work alongside fellow colleagues.

Getting in Touch

As a teacher, getting students in the classroom to have motivation and good conduct can be a very difficult task.  Classrooms can possibly be on two sides of the spectrum, either well behaved or rowdy.  As I look back to my school days the conduct of the classroom was usually based on the teachers interaction with the "class clown."  This individual had the potential to disrupt almost any lesson but also had the power to motivate the class to participate in any activity.  From what I have expericed, teacher who attempted to motivate or respect me improved the classroom conduct in a positive way.

As a teacher I will make the attempt to locate the "class clown" and motivate him to enjoy and participate in class, in hope that his influence on the rest of the class will follow in his footsteps.  "Class clowns" have the potential to make a classroom exciting and a fun learning enviroment, but also can turn a room into chaos.  Educators need to approach these kids in a positive manor from the get go. 

Paper Clips

The other day I watched a program that investigated a small Tennessee middle school that were doing an interesting activity to get the students to learn about the Holocaust.  The teachers really got in depth with this activity and really made the learning very graphic for the students.  The question is, Was this age appropriate for middle school students?  I believe the answer to this is, yes.  

 Middle school students are starting to get to the age where they are understanding what the word death really means.  Many students at this age has most likely experienced some sort of loss in their life.  Though it might hurt to speak of death to student, it is most definitely a part of life.  The goal of a teacher is to make students good contributers to the community and humanity.  And learning about the Holocaust will hopefully keep us from repeating history.  We must learn from our mistakes as a human race so that we may evolve into a peaceful race.