Touring the World of Education

I think teaching is like being a tour guide. As a teacher you are taking your students on a journey. Some of your students will come equipped with well stalked back packs and some will come with barely enough supplies to last them through the trip. Some students will do fine with just a compass and a map while others will need to be led hand in hand through the journey. Some will chose to travel in groups while others will choose to take the trip on their own. Along the way your students will travel rocky roads, sale smooth oceans, and see sights they have never dreamed of seeing. Some will enjoy the scenery along the way while others will only complain about being tired and having sore feet. What may start out as sinking in a puddle hopefully will finish by looking at the world from the top of a mountain.

This class has made me think about things I had never thought about before. It has been my tour guide to a part of the world I am just beginning to learn about. I learned about progressive learning which showed me methods of teaching and types of classrooms that I was not ever aware existed, such as the Summerhill School and unschooling along with the Costa Rica cloud forest classroom and the Norway Outdoor Preschool.

Learning different ways to teach multi-cultural students and students with learning disabilities also taught me new concepts. I especially liked how there was a lot of importance put on involving students families. I think that involving parents in their child's education and getting to know your students outside of school is crucial to their learning experience.

After doing the module on place based learning I realized how important it is to involve students in the world outside their classroom. What could be more important than making your students aware of social and environmental issues. These are things they are going to have to deal with and eventually take responsibility for so the sooner they are aware of them and they work on making them better they will find that this will improve their quality of life.