| Resume
Professional
Standards
Intech
Lesson Plans
Rationale
Why Social
Studies?
Critically
Reading the
World
Teaching for
Democracy
Collaboration
Activism
Decision Making
Teaching as a
Profession
|
Why I Teach . . .
On the following pages, you will find a great deal of professional
information
regarding my burgeoning
teaching career. Yet before we begin, I
would
like to briefly address the personal reasons why I have chosen to
teach.
I feel knowing these reasons will deepen the professional information
to
be found later. First, I teach because I feel it is an important
profession.
Before I decided to teach, I worked at CNN, the Cable News Network. I
questioned
daily why I was going to work. I could not ever adequately answer that
query. I determined I needed something more from the profession
to
which I was to devote the rest of my life. I needed to know I was
getting
up every morning for more than just a paycheck. Teaching offered a
solution
to this particular dilemma. I understand why I teach. If I wish the
future
to be a better place, I cannot sit back and wait for it to happen. I
must
actively pursue that future, and what better way to do that than to
teach
the future, young people. Second, I loved school. A great part of the
reason
I am the person I am today is due to the education I received in the
public
education system. I want to be able to give something back to the
system
that has given so much to me, for free. Third, I had many great
teachers,
but I had three incredible teachers who made me want to teach. These
teachers
left me with a desire to mold young minds. They left me with the hope,
the need, to affect the lives of young people like they affected mine.
If I accomplish that goal with just one student, this decision will
have
proven the right one.
What I Teach For . . .
I wrote my first rationale for teaching social studies in ESOC 6350
under
the premise that it was a work in progress. As part of the requirements
for my student teaching experience, the first reevaluation took place.
Now, in this electronic portfolio, the second major overhaul has taken
place. On the subsequent pages, you will find discussions of the five
chief
principles that constitute my visions of teaching (social studies in
particular).
Hopefully, you will see the threads of this rationale running
throughout
this portfolio as I break down the six standards. Some standards and
substandards
have been more easily connected, while others may have only the
slightest
connection. Know as you read this that the rationale (each section of
which
can be reached by following the links to the left) influenced
everything
that was attempted during my student teaching and everything included
in
this portfolio whether or not the influence is explicitly stated or not. |
