Lesson Plans and Reality

This week has been a really good experience. I have really enjoyed the group project of combining everyones ideas and ways of thinking and teaching into one lesson plan. We have come up with things that I never would have thought of or at least it would have taken me a whole lot longer to come up with and even then it wouldn't have been as good as when we are all working on it together. One of the hardest things is to get a good anticipatory set that will draw the students in and then lead them into your lessons smoothly.

It has been really great this week to go over the reality of teaching with Geoff's thoughts as well as a guest speaker (I really wish I could remember his name.) I had been worried a little about income mostly because once I told my mom I wanted to become a teacher she flipped. She kept going off about how I wouldn't make enough to support a family and I would have to have two or three jobs on top of teaching, etc.... It came to the point where I decided...OK great. I will just have to work another job. Now that we have gone over that part I will probably still have another job for at least the start in order to stay on top of things and so that we can have what we need especially with my wife and myself being from different states and there going to be a lot of travel happening. But really I don't need to be a millionaire. I never have been and I don't know how much I would enjoy it if I was. Actually if I had that much money I would spend it on farmland and start an Adventure ranch or something with my brother so it wouldn't be a bad thing but it just isn't a priority for me to make more money than I could ever need to spend. I grew up in a small town and I learned how to work and live with what you have and I enjoy living that way.

I feel what makes the biggest difference in my decision to become a teacher is the same as most... I just want to help people. I love the age group that we will be working with and I honestly want to help them through a very difficulty point in life as far as self worth, personality, and future.

I'm sure I have talked about him before but I had a Drivers-ED teacher in high school who taught us a whole lot more than drivers-ed. He was a teacher who took the moral dimensions of teaching to the maximum potential without any of the students knowing he was doing it because he just lived it. His life was teaching. Having lost his own, he treated and made his students and, being a coach, his athletes his family. He is one of the biggest reasons I want to do this and for the same reason he did it. He cared about the students and knew he could have an influence for the best in each and every one of them if he put in the effort to do so... and he did. I will never for get that. I just wish he was still around so I could learn more from him.

Being a teacher isn't easy. But I think it will be worth it and that I will enjoy doing it. That is what matters most.