I Believe

So, what do I believe?

"I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. "

Ha! Okay seriously. I was thinking, if I'm going to risk my job and not just teach what someone tells me to teach, then I better have a solid idea of what is I believe in and how I'm going to run my class.

So, this is just my rambling thoughts. Try to keep up! :)

Kids need a lot of play time!! We are cutting down so much of their outside time now because of NCLB. They get a total of 15 min. during the day to play outside. Because so many of them have asthma now, many parents are afraid to let them go out and play when they get home. Even I hate being in doors all day! We need to get outside more! And just play games in general. Kids learn through games and they don't even realize it. Plus it is a great motivator and they learn social skills and working together as a team.

I can't even sit still in a seat that long -- I can't imagine why anyone would ever come up with the idea of making a kids do it! I've already replaced individual desks with tables, but I'm using these as desks. I'd eventually like to do away with anything that resembles an assigned desk. When I work, I will choose differnent places for different purposes. At home I NEVER sit at a desk.

Students don't care about learning right now because they can't see any reason to learn it. We are teaching a list of objectives to make sure that they pass some stupid test a year from now! When this is our reason for teaching it loses all meaning for children. We need to create projects that have purpose and meaning for the students. Like instead of writing a story on a prompt they could (as a class) put together a newsletter about what they did last week in school for their parents, the prinicpal, etc. Write a play that they later perform. You know what I mean?

Kids need a job. They need to feel like they are contributing something to the world. They need mentors -- they need to be at real jobs with real people and help them with simple tasks. They will feel important, like they matter. I'm not talking about child labor. I'm talking about exposing them to the real world. So when they say why do we have to learn this -- someone other than their teacher can say -- this is why you have to know it and it will make immediate sense. Since, I doubt that will ever come to pass (unless I start up my own charter school) I'll need to figure out how to give them jobs with in the school. Like mentoring younger kids or something.

Those are my four of my very strong beliefs right now.