As a public school teacher, I feel I have the responsibility to help impart mean ing into the lives of children.

To not only educate future generations on facts and figures, but to help them understand why they need to know and understand th e world around them and where they fit in to this greater picture. Children need to know where we've come from in order to learn from our past collective experi ences as the United States and the world, to know what does not work, and what d oes. So as an educator in America, it is important to provide children with the opportunity to apply meaning to their lives in the context of their learning. I believe if it is possible to do that, children will naturally become interested in pursuing learning throughout their lives in order to better understand themse lves and the ever-changing world around them.

Along with the federal and state curriculum standards, public schools need to pr ovide students with models of good behavior, good citizenship, how to work well with others, and compassion and respect for others. As a childhood educator, I w ill be in the role to provide not only the foundation of learning for children, but to foster these universal values and to provide an example of how to interac t positively with others and how to live a good life with compassion and have a responsibility for our world. These characteristics or traits are essential for students to learn and apply to the real world outside of the classroom, which is where they all end up sooner or later. Why not teach children the important lif e skills that will help them to be successful in any field of work or part of th e world? Why not teach children to be good, kind people? To live in a world full of compassionate, respectful, responsible people would be a utopia! Yes, there will always be those who make decisions and choices that don't follow along the aforementioned lines of character and seek out selfish and malevolent endeavors. But the important thing to remember is that to stand up to those malevolent ind ividuals would be the many people who've been armed with well-meaning and positive di positions. The first learning environment for children will always be their home. The base of their experiences that make up who they are before entering school will have occurred outside of the classroom walls, and that needs to be acknowledged. Ever yone has different values that they are brought up with, but it is an important feature in the classroom to provide instruction and modeling in what I consider universal values. Universal values do not create bias and they do not create div isions among people. Instead, they develop closer-knit communities made up of co mpassionate citizens.