Session One

1. In answering this question I can't help keeping in mind the students I will be teaching next year. I have heard that my future students are sometimes stuck in a "bubble" and don't really understand the real world around them. Lately, I have been exploring different parts of the bay area, specifically San Francisco. It always amazes me how when I get on BART the farther in I get towards the city the more diverse the experience becomes. People from all different backgrounds, cultures, identities, etc. fill the BART and the culminating experience comes when I step out into the streets of San Francisco. I swear I could people watch all day. And then I think of my students who may be stuck in this bubble and as a history teacher and educator how can I help my students step out of this bubble? I am also sympathetic for them in a way. At one point I was these students. I was stuck in the bubble. But because of experiences and opportunities I was able to escape the bubble and learn so much more about the world around me. I hope that I can do this for my students. I hope that I can help them see the world in ways they have never experienced before.

2. The class discussion on Ball's "The Subject Matter Preparation of Teachers" was very passionate. Clearly, everyone has something meaningful to say about the article and how it affected our teaching. I do however think there might have been a bit of a misunderstanding of Ball overall. Ball fully supported knowing one's content but she also supported the importance of being able to incorporate that content with life skills that we can teach our students. The art of teaching is not knowing just teaching content but how to establish a setting that expects students to learn content while also teaching them how to be successful in the real world. 

As teachers we can also get frustrated at times with the "politics" of how it all works and how it can get in the way of what is best for our students. And I think it is fair to get upset about the things that get in the way. However, I do think that it is important to think of the positive. I don't see the standards or the politics or the districts or the money as necessarily a problem but as a challenge that I must overcome so that I can still teach my students what I feel is most important for them to know. That's really what I feel like it's all about.

3. I have still not entirely established a direct question for my research. However, I do have a general idea of what I want to research on. This upcoming school year, history teachers will be required to teach about historic LGBT peoples and events. Since this is such  new line of teaching that many history teachers have never taught before I thought it would be interesting to do research on this topic. The obvious choice for me was studying Harvey Milk and his fight for LGBT civil rights. There was a couple of reasons that I decided to go along with Harvey Milk's movement. First of all there are so many parallels between the LGBT civil rights movements and the African American civil rights movements. Not to mention various other movements that can also be compared. Next, like I already mentioned this is new territory for a lot of teachers so I thought it would be helpful to develop a curriculum based around these ideas. Also, we are lucky to be located only about a half hour away from where Harvey Milk actually helped establish this movement. The opportunity for experiential learning is endless. Lastly ,and probably most importantly, teaching about LGBT peoples and events is significant because it is a way to educate students and help eliminate misunderstanding and intolerance in our society. Nine months out of the year our students are in school learning not only about school specific content but about who they are and about the world they live in. All false ideas can be erased in the classroom and school should be a place where we teach our students about acceptance of all human beings. What better way to do this then to teach about an issue that is so heavily misunderstood.

4. I am very excited to begin this experience. Discovering new things and creating a curriculum that is new and exciting. This issue really speaks to me and I can't wait to begin exploring it. :)

I posted comments on the following:

Alana Scott
Betsy Varellas
Katherine Asch