Blog Post #10

In the video, Do You Teach or Do You Educate I was expecting more from it than what it turned out to be. Josh Bloom created this video in 2006 as probably a class project. Watching this video I didn't feel any inspiration to want to educate. I can tell he worked hard and spent a lot of time on the video, but it lacked the desire to teach. I watched the video twice just to make sure I didn't miss some powerful message but I was extremely board, and lacked focus.

I want to become an educator, I want students to be inspired by new information and think for themselves. Education is such a powerful tool that we, as American's, take advantage of it. I wish I would have tried harder in high school and paid closer attention to what my teachers were really telling me. I want to become an elementary teacher because I believe that the young minds hold the most power. As an educator I want students to feel like they can ask any question and not feel dumb. I want to demonstrate that the little subjects build on top of each other, like building blocks and that furthers our knowledge. It's hard for me to explain my passion for children and the joy I feel knowing that I'm changing children's lives.

After reading Tom Johnson's blog post titled, Don't Let Them Take The Pencils Home it brought to my attention again how much I hate taking test. Since I can remember, test have been used to see how much students know. I myself am an awful test taker, I get very nervous and forget everything when that paper is handed to me. All the school board sees is our test scores and ways to improve them. Some schools have been so low in grades that they talked about taking the extra involvement's like sports and clubs out of schools. To me, taking these things out of school will worsen the grade for the students have nothing to look forward to. Anyway, regarding Mr. Johnson's post about not letting students take the pencils home because it lowers test scores. He explains that pencils are for learning and by taking them home the parents can learn to in this low income community. People, not just children, learn everywhere they go. The saying, "You learn new things everyday" is completely true. No matter how old we are or where we go, there is always something new to learn. LEARNING SHOULD NOT STAY IN A CLASSROOM. As a teacher, I would want my students to take what they learn inside the school walls and express them outside. Also, use their knowledge outside of school and bring it inside. Learning never ends and it should never stop, especially if the pencil is broken, sharpen it and keep writing.