Finding Myself

I thought that chapter 14 was really interesting and the part that really got me was the section about knowing yourself and examining you before you can reflect on you as a teacher and before you can learn about your students. This section really hit home for me because I feel like that is a large part of what I learned this semester through my coursework and my experiences in my internship. I never really thought that my culture, my ethnicity and my views were important but I have learned that in order for me to be the best teacher I can be I need to figure out those things about me and make sure they are where I need them to be in order for me to become the kind of teacher who can reach every kind of student in all kinds of learning communities. It was a huge revelation to me because I always felt like I knew who I was but this is a part of me that I never thought was important in defining myself. That is until now. This lesson has been invaluable and I am so glad that I am learning it now while I can still pursue this knowledge and know myself in this way before I have students.

Kids and Science

It was so fascinating to talk with the 4th graders at Dwight Elementary School. The two students I spoke with had interesting ideas and varying levels of experience in science. One student hadn't had much exposure at all and had trouble talking about what science was and what topics are included in science. She could only talk about the unit that they were currently studying and couldn't recall or had never had previous experiences. When I did the experiment with the salt dissolving in water, she thought it disappeared into the air and that it would never come back. She didn't know how or why, but she was certain it was up there. This was fascinating to me because kids think in such an interesting way that it would make it possible for them to believe that things can just disappear like it is a normal thing. The other student had done a similar experiment in second grade and had remembered it. She knew that the salt dissolved and she said the dirt didn't dissolve because it was heavier, which I thought was interesting. I was impressed that she had remembered what she had learned and could apply it.

The part of the interview that I found interesting was that neither of them really had much exposure to science outside of school. This was evident in their ideas of what science was and that they didn't seem to have any background knowledge to pull from. This was sad because when I asked them if they could learn about anything or do anything in science what would it be...and they couldn't think of anything except what they were already doing and basic things like growing a garden filled with plants. It really shocked me that this was what she chose because to most people this is something that is easy to do and most kids in the suburbs get the opportunity to garden with their families or in school. In urban districts this isn't always the case especially because at that school and at the school I student taught in in Willimantic, there wasn't even grass around really. This is really a disservice to kids because they should get to be out in nature, to learn and explore, just like most kids get to.

I think what I learned from this is that I don't think most kids have enough exposure to all multitude of science in our world. Science is about questioning and investigating and exploring and I think all kids should have a lot of practice in all of those things. I think it is our job as teachers, especially in areas where kids aren't getting exposure at home, to introduce students to as much as we possibly can by bringing in things, by taking trips, and by using multi-media resources.