Imitation to Reflection: 1-1 Questions 1-6

1-4)My senior year high school teacher, had a unit on memoir, what better than war books and veterans right? Especially to catch an 18 year olds attention; it caught mine. I was amazed of all that I learned about the topic of war and the different types that occurred that I had no idea of. We read so many memoirs, and nonfiction books about war that by the time the semester ended I was even more curious, intrigued by these memoirs and excited to have learned so much through literature. What made my senior year was this unit. I remember it as if it was yesterday. The last major thing we did with that unit was a field trip. A field trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. It was amazing. What made it amazing now that I think back was that I was in that stage of mind; I had hit the stage of "flow". We got to hear some survivors that volunteer their time at this museum and ask questions, live. It was great. It wasn't over though, right after the field trip, my teacher also worked so hard to get a guest speaker to come to my high school to speak to everyone and to FnM college in the evening. The guest speaker was an author, surveyor, inspirational and motivational speaker; Immaculee Ilibagiza. She wrote "Left to tell." A quick summer of Left to Tell is a story of how Immaculee survived the Rwanda genocide and build a stronger relationship with God who strengthened her, even though she lost her relatives, and most of her family during the genocide. For three months she's was stuck in the attic of someone that was not of her kind, and who at any minute could have told on her, but that person who kept her a secret never turned his back on her. It is an incredible story, especially because she told us her story in person. 

I remember coming home on the tour bus from D.C after the field trip and the movie "Hotel Rwanda," playing, and thinking to myself, where I was going to be the following year, and if I was going to be strong enough to follow through and make it through college. It was a long bus ride, but good because all these speakers, novels and stories made me realize and reflect on my own life and future. If they been through so much, and having maybe one family member alive in most cases, and here I have all of mine at home, safe and sound, I think I can make it. Those text that we read throughout the memoir/war really hit home for me and allowed me to open up, give hope, be hopeful and keep moving on with a purpose in mind. I want to imitate her strategies, her methods of teaching in a secondary classroom. Some of the prints/nonprints text were:

Left to tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza

Night by Elie Wiesel

A long way gone: a memoir of a boy soldier by Ishmael Beah

4) Some memories of unpleasant classroom events that I hope to avoid is being teacher centered instead of student centered. I also do not want to lecture for 45 minutes. I want to work FOR students. I had a lot of teacher centered and no creativity in too many of my classes. 

5) a-print/nonprint literature

     b-adolescent students

     c-the act of teaching

     d-langauge(writing or speaking)

     e-other- coaching/dance instructor/drama 

     f-the life of schools

6) Why do you want to become an English teacher? -To inspire, mentor, motivate and help others through writing-ways of expressing their selves, creativity and courage to share that with others. Being an English teacher is like traveling through many lives, attitudes (especially in an urban setting), fixing whats been hurt or damage, and giving hope to the hopeless. 

Metaphors:

I consider myself as of right now, (as a perspective teacher) as an artist’s kit. I carry inside my kit, glue, different color paint, tape, paper, pen/color pencils/ samples of my art. Inside of me I have all these tools that students are to use to paint their own painting. I can only provide them with the tools, not the art. With the tools, they create, innovate, and choose what to draw/paint/illustrate what their masterpiece will look like in the end in order to show and share with others in the public. The students are the artists; I’m the kit and my classroom a studio.

“ Beginning is not only a kind of action; it is also a frame of mind, a kind of work, an attitude, a consciousness” –Edward. 

How to Bring our Schools Out of the 20th Century

"Becoming smarter about new sources of information." Our students are living in a world of technology and need to know the appropriate usage before they begin abusing it. Developing good people skills such as forming essential questions, thinking critically, for success in todays workplace. The students of today's generation do have quite an advantage with fast media and easy access on the tips of their fingers, but what google does not do for them is teach them how to do research properly and search for deeper thinking.