Teachers of the Future

Wow, so many topics to choose from! It is amazing how much information we have covered in a little over three weeks.

In regards to DAT, I have had little to no experience with this topic. None of my friends in high school drank, smoked, or used drugs, so I have never been exposed to any of the issues that go along with substance abuse. As a teacher, I will have to be proactive and research these topics in order to how to properly help my students. If I end up teaching in a high school, these issues will be ones that I may very well need to address on an almost daily basis. Do any of you have suggestions as to where I can find more information to properly prepare to deal with these issues? How much does a teacher need to know about DAT in order to help his students?

Personally, I really enjoyed the teacher panel. It was great to hear all of their stories and absorb the advice that they had to offer. The whole experience has really made me that much more interested in teaching. It cracks me up what kids will do (the electrical socket story). It was especially helpful to hear what the teachers did to deal with the more difficult students. Let’s face it; many of us worry about how to deal these types of kids. The teacher panel also provided lots of helpful tips on how to interview well and what employers are looking for. This was my favorite part of the panel. As Atticus Finch says in To Kill a Mockingbird, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Finally, what are we going to do about technology? As teachers, technology is a wonderful tool that we can use to improve lessons and the students’ learning process. It is something that I will make use of in band/choir (recordings, electronic keyboards, etc.) and general music (music composition software, recordings, etc.). As helpful as technology can be though, I think there is often a danger in the modern approach to it. Technology is only a tool. It should not be doing everything for us, and we certainly should not be using it as a crutch. We need to use technology, not let it use us. So as teachers, what can we do to prevent technology from becoming more than a tool? How can we properly utilize it without becoming dependent on it?