As a History Teacher. . . I will be a song-leader.
In my junior year, I studied the Black Freedom Movement and read an excerpt from Bernice Reagon’s speech about how the Black Freedom Movement did not have soloists in the choir but song leaders. These song leaders began the song and then encouraged others to join in and sing as loud as possible. She recalled the music being louder than she had ever heard it. This image of a song-leader describes the role I will take in my student-centered classroom. I will lead my students into the material and then let them discover their own interpretations of what they are learning and create something original that holds relevance to their lives.
I will be a creative social studies “song leader”. I will integrate the many social studies disciplines into my classroom because they will enrich the content for my diverse learners. In my classroom, students will use their strengths build understanding. Differentiation of skills makes the content relevant to the students because adolescents want to succeed. Allow them to use their strengths to learn something new and they will gain confidence and motivation to learn more. In my opinion, the purpose of social studies is to guide students through the process of figuring out their identities. The energy in my classroom through a multifaceted integration of technology, visuals, artifacts, and content will create the bass for my classroom. The heavy vibrating tone will be felt and heard causing listeners to turn it up the song.
As a student-centered classroom, students will be responsible for how loud they play their song. From day one, I will enforce my high expectations about effort and respect. After modeling how to meet expectations, my students will be accountable for adhering to those expectations. Those who choose not to cooperate will remain in class because removing them from the learning environment is counter-productive; instead, he or she will spend time helping out before or after school with me. This type of management will allow me to build positive relationships with my developing adolescents who purposefully sing off-pitch. I will continuously re-enforce that my students get to decide. The power of decision-making is a skill I want my students to take away at the end of the year. Decision-making builds confident and respectful young men and women who will have better control of their future success. Since accountability and management will be strong, I will allow for movement and noise to exist. Collaboration and group work are essential for understanding. I feel a silent classroom lacks the intensity of learning I seek to achieve. This harmony of social studies content, management, movement, and noise will assist in the development of my adolescent students.
Overall, the adolescent stage of life is critical. Large companies like Fischer-Price and Crayola have large campaigns on nurturing creativity for toddlers. Why are schools killing creativity for adolescents? Students most especially need opportunities to create. Through creativity, students will become aware of their identity and goals. By developing skills on how to put their own lives into the context and framing of historical events, they will begin to develop opinions about what they want out of life. Because I value creativity, I do not believe that every student is designed to go to college. To compensate for these students, I want to expose them through interactive activities, not simply lectures and exams that they can use social studies as an outlet for finding out what they want to do with their lives.
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I will be a creative social studies “song leader”. I will integrate the many social studies disciplines into my classroom because they will enrich the content for my diverse learners. In my classroom, students will use their strengths build understanding. Differentiation of skills makes the content relevant to the students because adolescents want to succeed. Allow them to use their strengths to learn something new and they will gain confidence and motivation to learn more. In my opinion, the purpose of social studies is to guide students through the process of figuring out their identities. The energy in my classroom through a multifaceted integration of technology, visuals, artifacts, and content will create the bass for my classroom. The heavy vibrating tone will be felt and heard causing listeners to turn it up the song.
As a student-centered classroom, students will be responsible for how loud they play their song. From day one, I will enforce my high expectations about effort and respect. After modeling how to meet expectations, my students will be accountable for adhering to those expectations. Those who choose not to cooperate will remain in class because removing them from the learning environment is counter-productive; instead, he or she will spend time helping out before or after school with me. This type of management will allow me to build positive relationships with my developing adolescents who purposefully sing off-pitch. I will continuously re-enforce that my students get to decide. The power of decision-making is a skill I want my students to take away at the end of the year. Decision-making builds confident and respectful young men and women who will have better control of their future success. Since accountability and management will be strong, I will allow for movement and noise to exist. Collaboration and group work are essential for understanding. I feel a silent classroom lacks the intensity of learning I seek to achieve. This harmony of social studies content, management, movement, and noise will assist in the development of my adolescent students.
Overall, the adolescent stage of life is critical. Large companies like Fischer-Price and Crayola have large campaigns on nurturing creativity for toddlers. Why are schools killing creativity for adolescents? Students most especially need opportunities to create. Through creativity, students will become aware of their identity and goals. By developing skills on how to put their own lives into the context and framing of historical events, they will begin to develop opinions about what they want out of life. Because I value creativity, I do not believe that every student is designed to go to college. To compensate for these students, I want to expose them through interactive activities, not simply lectures and exams that they can use social studies as an outlet for finding out what they want to do with their lives.
--> Meet the Standards Home Page