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Wednesday, July 06, 2005

The people who will teach your children 

...are currently in my classes, and I am frightened. Luckily, I am in a class this 6 weeks in which we have "digital discussions," which will allow me to cut and paste some interesting bits of dialog for you to enjoy. Those of you with no children will, no doubt, find this as hilarious as I do. Karen, luckily, is in another state, and so for your sake, I will hope that none of these people will become certified in North Carolina. Today's discussion was an "introductory biography" which was just a paragraph explaining why we want to be teachers. I should note that there were several normal responses, complete with a marginal grasp at literacy. #1: "Because I want an awarding career that can help make a difference in the world." [Oooo, what kind of award do I win when I graduate?] #2 "I has taken me sometime to decide what it is that i wanted to do with the rest of my life. I have explored many majors mostly in the feild of art, I love being creative. But nothing seemed satisfying. I love children and they seem to respond very well to me so i choose Early childhood Education. My reason being I can combine Two of my favorite interests Children and creativity. I have some background in the classroom and I feel it is my comfort zone." [Man, dig that crazy random capitalization.] #3 "I want to be a teacher mainly because I enjoy working with children. I am majoring in Early Childhood Education. I always wanted to be a teacher and I think I will enjoy being a teacher." [Maybe you would also enjoy an introduction to the thesaurus.] #4 "I want to be a teacher because I enjoy working with kids and helping them learn, I like English, and I feel I have the skills a person needs to be able to be a successful teacher. Most kids in high school think English is boring but I feel like I have enough patience and enthusiasm that I could get students to at least be able to want to come to class. Hopefully, I will be able to teach them why English is important in life and why it is a subject that should be enjoyable and fun. Teaching seems like the correct career choice for me based on my interests and on my love of English and working with students." [Hopefully, someone will teach her why clauses and commas are important, and why run-on sentences should not be used by ENGLISH TEACHERS.] #5 "I have worked with children for the last 11 years. I decided three years ago to go back to school, to get my degree. I love children, working with children is a labor of love. I'm glad that I had the experience working with children first before going to school." [Some people must have copied her answer. I swear I read this 7 times.] #6 "I feel that there are nat enough teachers that actually love there jobs as teachers. In school I had teachers that didn't care if you passed or failed. But I had one teacher that showed me what a good teacher really is. I saw the impact that she had on her students and that is the type of teacher that I want to be." [Wow. Just... wow.] #7 "One reason i want to be a teacher is because teachers are in a position where they can make a differance in a childs life.Also,teachers have a lot of time off to be with the family." [Huh. What a great reason to teach. The time off.] #8 "As I have gotten older (34) and less selfish, I have realized the importance of certain things. I have two small children and I want them to be proud of thier dad. I also want them to be well educated and understand the importance of education. I may never be able to buy them a Lexus or a home but I will be able to enstill in them the knowledge that they can achieve whatever they desire. I will help all of my students not only excel in academics but hopefully develop into well rounded adults. In doing so I will not only help others, I will grow as a person and show my children they can make a difference. " [A current father, a future teacher. Lord, help us.] I could go on all day with these, but, really, you get the idea. So, do you think funding is the answer? Hahahahaha, I crack myself up.
// posted by Emily @ 7/06/2005 02:28:00 PM   [ 2 Comments ]  Click here to add your 2 cents!
Comments:
Good gosh! What are we in for with Andrew? No wonder home schooling is becoming more popular.

Are these formal writing submittals or just discussion boards? I cannot believe the grammar and spelling!

I could make a few other choice comments, but since this blog isn't anonymous, I'd better bite my tongue.
posted by Blogger Karen : 7/07/2005 10:18:00 AM   
So, I didn't initally post this because I got paranoid that somehow my university would find out and I'd get in trouble.

Also, I thought maybe I was just being mean about their writing. I mean, it's not as though it was posted on a completely public forum. However, any student with a WebCT ID from any university could view it, so maybe it's public enough... I'm probably just paranoid.

So, yeah, this is a formal writing thing. The teacher gives us a topic for each chapter, and we submit a few lines or a paragraph for him to approve. Since Yesterday was our first day, we hadn't read the chapter yet, so the topic was to write about our reasons for teaching.

This is a senior level class. I've been seriously disturbed by the level of work that I see from my peers. I also hear things like, "Don't worry baby, C's get degrees!"

Yikes.

So this is just a convenient body of work to sample.

The only comforting thing I can think is that they haven't yet graduated... there's always the chance they might not. The university has a strict (HA!) requirement of a 2.75 GPA in your major coursework. So, C's won't actually get degrees.

Also, someone has to hire these numbskulls... So there is another filter. Hopefully.
posted by Blogger Emily : 7/07/2005 10:25:00 AM   
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