On to the Next Thing

    This week in class we completed the final chapter of our Milner text. It was daunting knowing we had finished over 200 pages in only 7 short weeks. Throughout reading this text, my eyes were opened to a new perspective on learning. It was interesting hearing from teachers in a variety of settings instead of the standard ones. This last chapter taught me that I can't even begin to understand the intricacies of what it means be a teacher, let alone one immersed in urban settings. I hope going forward, we continue to delve into the mind of a teacher in urban settings. I really enjoyed learning from a nontraditional perspective and hope I can use this concept not only in my future educational endeavors, but also in this course.

Returning to My Roots

This weeks course was quite interesting to me as we explored the idea of diversity in the classroom. There were lots of methods I was not aware of before reading chapter 5. In addition to the normal coursework, I scoped out a place I would like to do my volunteer project. I will hopefully be doing my volunteering at the Riverland Library, a place I used to spend a lot of time at as a kid. It will be nice to be able to give back to the place that gave me a lot of joy as a kid. Hope everyone is having a good week!

Seeing Things From a Different Perspective

For this weeks blog, I intended to talk about the last chapter we read in the course; however, much more crucial things took place that prompted me otherwise. Earlier this week I drove home to South Florida with a friend. Her mom was having surgery and she was pretty nervous about the whole ordeal so I told her I would come to the hospital and stay with her for a few hours. While we were all hopeful, the news caught us all by surprise. Her mom had ovarian cancer. Luckily the surgeon was able to remove them, as well as any other obstructions. While it was devastating news no doubt, I truly believe that everything is going to work out. Seeing how things could drastically change in a matter of an hours has shifted my perspective greatly. I think educators need to be open minded because you never know what might be going on in a students' personal life. Be there for your students and the environment will thrive. I also learned that everything will be okay in the end and if it is not okay, it is not the end.

Thoughts for This Week

          Today I learned about Dr. Johnson's experience as an African American female educator in a predominately white classroom through our module 4 reading. In addition, I discovered many different techniques that helped her thrive with her students. With this new found knowledge, I hope to be a better educator for future students. I will definitely take the idea of multiple worlds of literacy into consideration, because it is vital for students to be well rounded.
          I would like to know more about new techniques that are being tested out and helping students want to be more proactive in the classroom. If I were teaching this course, I would try to incorporate some of the ideas of Dr. Johnson. I understand it is a lot to ask because the course is online, making access to students more complicated; however, I think just a bit of input from each student could make the course that much better.