Ada Melnik 13841085 EDCP 333 Dr. E.

Wayne Ross September 17th, 2012 What it means to be a Teacher: A Challenging Road Ahead! The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. William Arthur Ward This quotation effectively sums up the things I would like to achieve as a teacher. While I cannot deny my love for explaining things and telling stories, deep down, what I want for my life is to know that I have inspired someone to do something. Whether it is something small and unrelated to the subject I am teaching, or motivation to be lifelong learners, I want to be the teacher that at least one student in my career remembers as inspiring them to do something. I remember when I was just a little girl, about six years old, and one of my friends needed help learning how to read time and I volunteered to help her. I can vividly remember the day when I sat down with her and taught her how to read time. We were sitting in my older sisters room and I was explaining to this friend how to understand what her watch said. I remember how it made me feel when she actually learned how to do it and how grateful she was for it. Since that day, I always knew that there was a part of me that was very inclined towards teaching. Making someone understand something that they could not understand before made me feel like I really had a purpose. Growing up, in elementary school and high school, I participated in as much as I could that was connected to teaching. I tutored other students in my school, officially and unofficially, and always enjoyed doing so. I believe that having a younger brother (who is six years younger) has also inspired me to become a teacher because I have had the opportunity to see how the next generation feels about school and their teachers. I have tried to

be a role model for my brother throughout his life and I think that an important part of being a teacher is being able to be a role model for students. I had a huge role in his life growing up and developed an idea of what it takes to be responsible for molding the minds or just inspiring the minds of young people and this is a process that I would feel honoured to be a part of. I would be lying if I said that teaching was my one and only passion in life in terms of career choices. For a long time, I aspired to become a film director; eventually, however, reality set in and that dream started to fade. This happened when I was already in university. When I realized that it was time to put my first dream to rest, I started to look more closely at teaching. Everyone had always told me that I would be a good teacher and I knew that I enjoyed teaching in the little ways that I had gotten to do it in my life. However, I believe the only way anyone can really know if they would enjoy a career is to actually experience it. Following that logic, I began to volunteer at my old high school as a student teacher. My former teachers, who had become colleagues and supervisors, gave me incredible opportunities to stand up in front of their classes and teach lessons. Some lessons would last half a class, some would be a full class hour, and some were for a few days. It was only after having this opportunity of standing in front of thirty-something teenagers, who were only a little bit younger than I was, and seeing how much they felt they could relate to me and trust me, did I realize that I would be really happy doing this for my whole life. Every year when I went back into that school and taught more lessons I became more and more inspired to hold this position permanently. I remember one lesson, after I had been teaching a grade 10 class about the Holocaust for a few days; two girls began to cry at one of the videos which I had shown in class. Although I felt quite guilty, it opened my eyes to the fact that I had an incredibly important role and vast opportunities to make a real difference in the world, even if was just making a difference in one students life.

In the last year before beginning this program, I had many opportunities to think about what it would mean to be a teacher. There are so many things that a teacher could be, and should be, that sometimes I have trouble deciding what is most important to me as a teacher. I think a good teacher is one that can go far beyond the content of what he/she teaches. Although I think it is critical for students to study Social Studies and understand the content, there are many lessons to be learned in the classroom that not only expand the knowledge of the student in that particular subject, but teaches them about themselves, others, and about life. I want my students to take away things from the classroom that make them feel good about their life and what they have to offer. I think in some ways, I very much believe in personal learning of each individual student. Each student has different strengths and weaknesses and every person learns differently through the classroom and even real world experiences. That is why I think as teachers, we have to be really creative in the way we chose to conduct a lesson. I had teachers in high school that would make all the students sit and read the textbook for the entirety of the class. I had other teachers who made us copy notes from the board or overhead for most of the class. The teachers who would change up the class almost every day were the ones who inspired me to become a teacher as well. I think it is so important to incorporate different methods into teaching, especially in todays world and with todays teenagers. I have seen how hard it is to keep teens focused on work when they have so many distractions at their fingertips. If students work with one another, have to be active in the classroom and are encouraged to participate in the learning process, they will not have as much time to be bored and get distracted as a result. I think the basic goal of a teacher and something that I definitely want to do in my classroom is get the students involved in the learning process. Students should absolutely play a role in the classroom and their opinions should be heard and respected. I think every individual

has something to offer and I do not think that every teacher recognizes that. I think we as adults often underestimate the things that teenagers might know or have experienced in their lives. Every person, whether they are 15 or 50 have experienced some things in their lives and have world views on various issues. If we discount teenagers and not give them an opportunity to express their opinions, form their own ideas about various issues in Social Studies, and only fill them up with content, they will not reach their full potential as young adults and members of the society. Becoming good citizens in society is an issue that has come up a lot so far in the program when discussing the purpose of Social Studies education. That is where socialization seems to also play a role. Socialization in the classroom is a difficult issue to consider in my opinion. Although I might disagree with certain things about society and about the things that people need to learn in order to function successfully, society will not change overnight and students still need to have the skills to successfully function in the real world. I think it is important to prepare students for their lives after high school and part of that is teaching them to respect rules and follow instructions. At the same time, I think that a teacher can instill rules and guidelines, but not keep things too restricted in terms of how they approach the instructions they are given. For example, if part of the Social Studies history curriculum is about knowing what the battles of WWI that Canadians participated in were, the teacher can give students a project where they need to explain one of the battles. However, instead of forcing everyone to write an essay, you could leave the means open to the students to determine how they would like to portray the battle. Some students might choose to write an essay because they feel most comfortable writing. Other students might give a presentation; maybe another student will draw a picture, or write a poem, make a poster, etc. The point is that they will still learn how to follow the instructions because no

matter the medium, students will need to incorporate certain information in their projects. There will be a due date and therefore students will also need to learn to work in a framework of time. I think the point of these kinds of projects in not only to assess what students have learned, but to examine how much effort the students are willing to put into their work. I think teachers would see a lot more effort from many more students if the students got to choose how to work on their project. I think it is very difficult to get a student who really struggles in writing to work hard on writing an essay. However, I realize that this idea is far from perfect. If a student is weak at writing papers, and I as a teacher, allow them to not have to write papers, I would be harming them in the long run. Students cannot avoid writing essays in their entire academic career. I think therefore that it is good to make students alternate between mediums in various projects. I think that teaching has to be give and take and not just enforcement of the rules towards students. If students know that they will have opportunities to do other projects that are more aligned with their strengths, they could be more motivated at working through other mediums as well. I think it is important for teachers to open themselves up in a way whereby students feel comfortable coming to them for help. I would love to be the teacher who can help a student who struggles to write good essays, to write an A paper. I know that it is very difficult to divide time equally for every student when as teachers we might have many students per semester. However, it is still very important to make it clear to students that need be, you will make time for them. I know from talking to students who are still in high school now that they do not like certain classes where they feel that the teacher has not made a conscious effort to get to know them and bond with them. Students need to feel comfortable expressing themselves to their teachers, especially during their teen years. Many teens struggle with who they are and when they feel like those who they are surrounded by every day do not care about them, they do not

give many valuable things towards the learning process. The classroom needs to be an open space where the students learn from the teacher and the teacher also learns from the students. It must be a space for discussion and opinions, while instilling the values that students need to have to work effectively with those who are different from them. A teacher needs to be able to show students that their differences with one another can be a positive thing and a learning experience. So far, what I have written about has not really touched upon the actual content of a Social Studies classroom. Although I think that teaching students cooperation, toleration, respect and good work habits is critical, I do not discount the need of todays teenagers to have a good Social Studies education. As human beings on this earth, we need to understand the past, the present and this world in order to attempt to be good people amongst other humans and our environment. History and geography have such an important aspect in making people understand who they are and how they got here. I think the quote about history that claims that if we do not know history, we are doomed to repeat it, really states the importance of Social Studies education. Although the world is far from perfect and we still make the same mistakes in certain places and with certain people, we have certainly learned a lot from the past. I think that although it has not worked for everyone, seeing the past and what humanity has done to other members of the globe has made many of us more compassionate towards others. Geography is critical in this regards in many ways as well. We often talk about all these places and the history of those places, yet many people do not actually know where those places are when they look at a world map. They do not understand the history of that place in relation to the places around it. I have encountered many instances in which people have no idea where a place they have been to actually is. I think it is really sad that many people are ignorant of the world around them and that is why I think the content of a Social Studies classroom is critical as well.

School is about more than the information students learn. It is a place for them to practice how to be good to others and good to themselves. It is a place where they can learn and demonstrate their strengths and work towards improving their weaknesses. It should not be the place where teachers instill an attitude of superiority of those who are part of the ruling class but instead should be a place where students, no matter whether they are in their Social Studies, Math, or Science class, learn to see the world from different perspectives. This is the way that teachers can make sense of the world to their students and give them a more complete picture of what the globe is actually like. School is where equality and justice must be practiced and a place where every individual, no matter their sex, gender, orientation, class, or ethnicity, feels welcome, appreciated, and respected. I go into teaching with a lot of optimism, hundreds of ideas, and many possibilities. Coming back to the quotation at the beginning of this paper, I want to be able to do all things that make for a good teacher. I want to be able to effectively tell, explain, demonstrate and most importantly inspire. I want my students to get the most that they possibly could from the classes. I want them to feel inspired; whether it is inspiration to work hard, be kind to other people, continue studying Social Studies, or change something about their world. If I have inspired one person and I have felt that inspiration come to life, I will know that I have achieved the goals I had for myself as a teacher. I want school to be a positive experience for my students as it had been for me for the most part, and I want to be the person who gives them that positive experience. I want to show the students that they could be good students, as well as good people and give them the tools to really believe in those things. School should be fun and a place where young people are excited to go. I want to put that excitement in the classroom where I will have the honour to teach.