Tag Archives: school

Teaching Practice #1

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I’m nervous. I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. I have zero confidence. I don’t feel at home or comfortable up in front of a group of strangers, especially when I don’t really know what I’m talking about.

I’d feel a lot better with a few margaritas in me. I do pretty good karaoke that way, but I don’t think that’s allowed. 🙁

Tomorrow is my first teaching practice session. I’ve had a few chances to observe already. I’ve been trying to concentrate on learning the techniques the teachers are using to get the information across and manage their classrooms. But they seem very comfortable with it and it’s obvious they know their material very well. I don’t.

Sure, I can speak English. I can read, write and spell it too. But I don’t know how to explain grammar. I don’t know all the rules and details. I struggle to use proper punctuation!

I spent about 4 hours this afternoon working on my lesson plan (for a 1 hour class). I’m still lost. Thank god there is a pretty good book to follow!

I’ll go over my notes again in the morning and try and get through this. After all, it’s not like they’re going to shoot me or anything. I should be happy to have the opportunity to work through my stage fright, right? 🙂

PS- this was supposed to have been posted earlier, I was having so much trouble with the internet I just gave up on it and didn’t get to it again til now. I taught my 1st class this morning. I survived. 🙂

Saving Democracy with Civic Literacy in America 101

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Saving Democracy with Civic Literacy in America 101.

I liked seeing this article (in Utne Reader) and I really agree with pretty much everything they said about the need for civic education. I remember we used to have classes in civics in elementary school. I still remember a lot of what I was taught then and I still really believe in all that stuff. I am a strong supporter of the constitution and wish more people around me were. I think people need to have a good understanding of the constitution and the principles behind it. I do disagree with the writers when they say that what made our country great was BIG government! WOW!! I totally disagree with that! In fact, I think its the complete opposite. We became great because we had the FREEDOM that having a SMALL government gave us! We are still living off the productivity those years provided. Now we are losing our freedom, our prosperity, our strength and influence in the world because we have strayed from our founding principles and our government has become so huge it has taken over everything here. You can’t do ANYTHING here anymore without government somehow being involved. You can’t get though a day without breaking at least one law anymore. There’s a book out, its called “Three Felonies a Day” by Harvey Silverglate. I haven’t read it yet but just the title makes it sound like something I would really get into 😉