BlogPost 8

In my future teaching career, I would like to teach either high school History or English. For this imaginary lesson, I am going to focus on History, specifically U.S. Government with the help of current events. For example, if it is a Government class, and the students are learning about the political parties (Republican and Democratic), I could show news clips of the presidential election. Fox News, CNN News, and MSNBC, more times than not, will show the same events, but discuss them in different ways. Fox News tends to lean more Republican, CNN normally leans more Democratic, and MSNBC leans more towards the left on the liberal side. I would show all three clips, and then discuss why each news channel had different views, the reasoning behind it, and then open the floor to the students to share their views on each topic.

This in itself is bridge building. The news channels connect back to the lesson, and it links classwork with everyday life. It is so easy for students to regurgitate what they hear at home when it comes to political parties, whether it be Republican or Democratic. This will help students understand political parties from both stand points, then decide their outlook on the topic without a bias atmosphere. I feel that is necessary for students to be aware of what is going on in the world around them. When I was in high school, my peers and I loved when teachers would show current events, and then discuss them afterwards. Sometimes it would break out into a debate, but it would always leave us more knowledgeable than we were when we walked into class.

Blog PostIt Notes

While reading through the chapter “The Banking Concept of Education”, multiple things stood out to me. One topic in particular was the list of situations that are apparent in the banking education. For example, “the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing.” This concept was obvious in my sophomore year geometry class. When the teacher was “teaching” us he mostly talked down to my peers and me. It was extremely hard to learn in that environment; he made you feel as though he was all knowing, and there was a small chance you would be able to grasp the content. Also, if you had trouble understanding material, he was not quick to assist students. I hope my future students will never feel this way in my classroom. I will make a conscious effort to make a comfortable learning environment. Obviously I will know the concepts more thoroughly than my students. But, it is necessary for me to learn from the students. Even though I am the teacher, there is plenty of ideas I can better understand through my students.

BlogPost5

My high school is located in a very suburban, white, wealthy area. At my high school, addressing homosexuality and heterosexuality was quite divided. There was a group of boys who were totally against gays and lesbians. We had a history teacher who was gay, and some of the male students refused to take his class (which they really missed out on, because he was an awesome teacher and taught one of my favorite classes). This group of boys was very conservative, Republican, and basically regurgitated anything their parents said. On the other side was a group of both boys and girls. This group was extremely liberal and democratic. There were multiple feminists and plenty of human rights activists; they were very quick to speak their minds, and happy to share. But, with this divide came conflict. There were countless Twitter and Instagram fights for everyone to see. Debates in our government classes over controversial topics got heated, and people would get extremely into them. Although those two groups were divided, all the other students kind of floated in the middle. Some students were all for gay rights, but never spoke out about it. Some students used derogatory terms. Some students were against it, but stayed quiet about it.

Regardless of where each student stood, there was always support from some teachers and a LGBT program. In my school that I teach at one day, I plan to be open with my students. I plan to leave it up to them if they want to talk to me about issues going on in their lives. I probably will not reach out to them unless I feel pulled to do so. I hope that in the school I teach one day there is a LGBT program. If there isn’t one, I don’t know if I would start one. Although I am all for gay rights, I am not extremely passionate about the subject. To start a program like that, I feel as though you should be fervent about the gay and lesbian topic.