Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Chapter 3: Thoughts

Chapter 3 has brought about a lot of questions for me! The statistics that are stated within the first few pages are very interesting! For me, I came from a small school where our graduating class was 84 students and I believe that probably 95% or more of the students were Caucasian/white. I was raised to believe that everyone is equal, no matter their race, ethnicity, etc. I think that I like to look at everyone as an equal now, not only in day to day life, but when I am teaching! I want to make sure to look at students as equals, no matter what their race, ethnicity, etc. I believe we as educators should all look at students as equal and give each and everyone of them an equal opportunity to succeed. I don't think that we should give special treatment to one particular race or culture. I do believe though that in our society there are many people that believe that one race, ethnicity, or culture should be higher on the "to tum" pole. After reading the paragraph on being born a different race and then needing to be changed to another, how much do you think you should get for compensation? Is that really a valid question? I mean again why should one race be considered better than others? To me that just doesn't make sense. I don't know what are your thoughts on it? Do you think that one race or culture is better than another? Do you think that they should receive special treatment in the classroom, outside the classroom and out in the real world?
What do you think about the Deficit theory? My thought is that this could be an issue for students to succeed in the classroom. There are some instances where students are lacking the necessities to succeed, due to lack of materials, such as books. I think we as educators that is part of our jobs is to help the student strive and succeed by giving them as much help as we can in the classroom. Expectation theory? I think that there are some teachers out there now that are just going through the motions and they have certain students who they believe don't have a chance to succeed and I think that we need to think of the students as blank slates or clay that we can help mold, if we are expecting them to fail, then we are failing as professional educators. Finally, the Cultural difference theory, I do have to agree with what they say, that we as professionals, should be willing to learn about the differing cultures of our students to better help them succeed in the classroom.
If we as teachers do not work to learn about all of our students, no matter what race, ethnicity, or culture or whatever, we will continually to fail as teachers because our society is continually growing and continuing to change. We need to focus on the DIVERSE teaching skills which include, diverse instructional materials, inclusive, variety, exploration, reaction, safety, and evaluation. I think if we learn about the students and incorporate all of these teaching skills we can get back on top and make sure that all of our students succeed, no matter what religion, race, etc.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Why I chose Physical Education as my Major?

Physical Education has been a very important part of my life. I have played sports since I was five years old. Even before then I can remember me and my sister just going outside and playing games, running around inside playing tag and hide and seek. I have been active for my entire life. I did not first choose to become involved in the Physcial Education Major, I took a long widy road to get to where I am now. Ever since I was 14 years old I said that I was going to go to college to become a Veterinarian. My first job and one of my jobs now is working at an animal hospital where I was getting first hand experience into the life of a Veterinarian. Everyday was different there were emergenices that would walk into the door, and you would need to just go with the flow. When I finally graduated High school, I was accepted to Wells College which was a private college where I was pursuing my degree in Veterinary Medicine. While at Wells, I struggled to want to focus on my classes, I would have rather go and play a pick up game of basketball or play softball then to focus on my school work. That was a turning point in my educational plan. After two years of pursuing a degree in Veterinary Medicine I decided that this was not the degree that I wanted to pursue anymore. I did not have the passion for it as I had hoped. So I went home over christmas break and sat down with my parents and broke the news to them. I thought they were going to be disappointed in me for changing my mind after being so set on becoming a Veternarian, but to my surprise, they were actually very happy with my decision. All they kept sayiing is that they can picture me being a Physicaal Educator or a coach, since that has been such a big part of who I am. In high school I was a three sport athlete all year round every year starting in 7th grade, so this was a good start for me. I then enrolled at Finger Lakes Community College where I began to pursue and start my education over in my new field of Physical Education. While attending Finger Lakes Community College, I took an english class for one of my general education classes. In this class the instructor asked us to think of a person that could have inspired us to become what we are and we were going to write a letter to them explaining how they impacted our lives and why they were so important to us. I chose to write about my Varsity Basketball coach, he was also the Guys Physical Education Teacher in our High School. He was new to the school when I started JV and he was not afraid to step outside of his boundaries to make us better not only as a person but as a team as well. He taught me that you can not get anywhere by yourself, everything you do is dependent on other team memebers. For example, you can not succeed in school if it were not for your coachs, teachers, parents, etc. He inspired me tremendously. When I finished writing the letter, we sent it out to the teachers, coaches, etc. This jsut showed me that there were people who inspired me to succed and to be the best I could and he made me realize that I wanted to be the one to inspire students as well. I went on and received my associates in Science of Physical Education at Finger Lakes Community College and transferred into SUNY Cortland in hopes of completeing my Bachelor's degree in Physical Education. As you can see I have had a nice windy road to get to where I am, but I know one thing is for sure, this is where I want to be from now on! I want to inspire students to perform at their best and to succeed and have a successful, healthy future.

*I did get a response back about my letter: My parents ran into my old coach at a community function and he stated that he received a letter from me a while back, and he has it framed in his office, and he asked that they thank me for him for the letter, because it truly inspires him to continue on everyday.