Action Plan

Social studies play a vital role in a democratic pluralistic society. I have chosen to teach social studies because of this fact. Social studies play such a vital role, and must hold an important place in the secondary school curriculum today because many American students do not know this nations basic history, and do not know what it means to be an active citizen. I believe that it is the role of a social studies teacher to teach her students the importance of social studies, inspire her students to have a passion for social studies, and teach her students how to be active and proper citizens.

An idea that has evolved as a result of my experiences this year and one major way that I can and have tried to transform my reality to match my vision is by always trying to set an example. One way that I have tried to set an example in these past few weeks has began with something as simple as standing and saying the pledge of allegiance. It sets an example for the students that patriotism is not only important for social studies, but is also important for being a good citizen. I also want to try to set an example of being upbeat an enthusiastic about the topic and for the students. One of the things I see is that students have no motivation about the subject or about being at school at all. They are getting ready for lunch or have just gotten back from lunch, and all they want to do is sleep. It would make everything worse if I myself was not enthusiastic or acted like I did not want to be there. So one way I plan to make this happen is to try to relate the material to the student and their current lives. I will be teaching Law Education, so this should not be very difficult to achieve. I want to ask the students questions to that will spark debate and enthusiasm. I also want to read current articles that directly relate to the student. For example while studying freedom of speech I will have the students look at articles that deal with myspace and facebook, which are very popular topics with the students. I anticipate that students will be eager to discuss whether or not they should be able to talk about their school and teacher on these popular websites.

However, teaching the importance of social studies to students will be quite difficult to do. Many students if not all see no importance in social studies especially in history, which is one course I will be teaching. I will have to try to come up with many innovative ways to get the students to be interested in social studies, and see its importance. Again I will try to relate the "stories" that I tell about history to the students' lives. If I can find some way to relate the topic that we are studying to the students' lives, then perhaps they will be see that social studies and history in particular is important and relevant.

I Believe Statement

I believe that education can be funny. By saying this I do not mean that education is humorous or a joke, but instead that educating students can be fun for the teacher and the student. I first learned that education can be fun in my tenth grade year in my Algebra II class. I had always taken honors classes, but I had slacked off in my freshman year and had taken college prep classes. So, in my tenth grade year I decided to double up on my math courses so that I could begin to take honors classes again in my junior year. This led me to take Geometry and Algebra II at the same time in tenth grade. Now it is important to mention that I did not like math, in fact, I hated it. I had always enjoyed history and science. So, I was not looking forward to taking these classes. I was also a little worried about the grades I would receive.

After a few days in my Geometry class I was relieved of my stress and fear. My teacher was a very nice young lady who was very soft-spoken and patient. I felt confident that I would do well in this class. However, my Algebra II class was a little different. My teacher was a very small, older, grumpy man. He reminded me of a little troll, who ran around screaming and terrorizing everyone. This class was already supposed to be a difficult subject, all I needed was a terrible scary teacher. On the first day of class I was given several hundred problems to complete and I was told I had the rest of the class to complete them. If I did not complete them oh well that was my problem. I was scared and very angry at this little man.

Things began to change for the better though. After awhile I began to see that this man was all talk. I guess he wanted to scare us into submission on the first day of class to secure classroom management because that was the last time he ever did that. I began to see that this was his personality, but it was hilarious to me. Whether or not it was his true self, or used to gain attention, his outbursts, mannerisms, and jokes were so funny I still laugh thinking about them. I actually began to look forward to his class, not only was it funny, but I also learned so much in his class. I became an expert in Algebra II and received an A in the class. This class stuck with me because I will soon be a teacher and I want to be like him. I want to still be myself, but also still make education fun. Hopefully one day some of my former students will blog or use some other form of technology that does not even exist to say that his or her teacher was a little off beat, but they learned a lot and enjoyed the class. At least I know that I will never forget the image of him holding a small piece of chalk in his little hand moving nervously around the classroom yelling and banging his forehead on the chalkboard.