My Major

I am majoring in Elementary Education, K-8 option. I have finally started taking classes on "How to Teach ....". We are 5 weeks into the semester and I am not yet sure that these classes are really going to help me, other than I should be able to write lesson plans in my sleep by the end. This portion of my program is called "Blocks." For those of you that remember, or have been around it, this merely means I have started the methods and practicum portion of my program. There are two "blocks," block A and block B. This semester, I am in Block B.

The biggest difference between the two blocks are the particular classes. Block B includes Teaching Elementary Science, Social Studies and Established Literature for Grades 4-8. Block A includes Art, Music, Math, and Emergent Literature for Grades P-3. Both Blocks include a practicum, which means I am in an elementary classroom for half the day, four days a week. I will be student teaching Spring of 2012 and then graduating in May.

Currently, I am commuting 20 minutes to my practicum classroom. It got interesting today when it started blizzarding. Rather than taking 20 minutes to get home, it took 40. The rest of the U.S. cancels class for that kind of weather. Here, we dig our cars out of 2 feet of snow and go to class, even though we aren't always sure if we're on the road any more or if the car in front of us just seems to know where it's going. I vaguely remember having snow days a couple times when I was little. Most of those times, school was still in session. We just couldn't get out of our yard because of the snow drifts. I also remember Mom bundling us up and having us walk the half mile down the hill to the bus stop. Garrett and I had a blast rolling down the hill in all our snow gear. Those were the days!

I enjoyed school quite thoroughly back then. As I've grown older, I've lost my love for it. I've also become quite jaded towards the university system. I feel like most of my professors know their content, but do not know how to teach. I've also learned to BS my way through papers, not a skill I'm very proud of. I've also lost much of my creativity, which saddens me a lot. Hopefully, I can inspire my students in ways that my professors fail to do for my classmates and myself. I feel hardly prepared to take on my own classroom at this point. I can only hope that two and a half more semesters will help me feel more confident. At least I am enjoying spending my afternoons with a bunch of kindergarteners, and apparently, haven't completely missed my calling.