Blog Post 10

        In the video, Do you teach or do you educate?, it gives you the definition of a teacher. Which, personally, I had never looked up before and was quite shocked to see the definition of. I thought that the definition of a teacher would be more of what the definition of an educator would be. I suppose this is not all a bad thing though, if I have set out to be a teacher with the definition of an educator in mind. In the path I will go down with my education, I would like for my time to be spent being a teacher educating my students in ways that will help them to achieve their dreams.
       When I decided to become a teacher, it wasn't because I had always dreamed of being one. And teaching just happens to be one of the stepping stones in where I hope to end up. Speech pathology is my main goal in my education, but I wanted to understand more of how children learned, and more of the psychology behind the mind of a child. I want to be able to help children who can't help themselves. Speaking is one of the most important ways we have to communicate with one another, and while they can always use technology to help them, we have to stop and think about whether that child WANTS to know how to speak and communicate. That is what I want to accomplish. To give children the opportunity to speak.

         When reading Tom Johnson's post, Don't let them take pencils home, I started to think back to when I was in Elementary school myself. Even though we took standardized tests and integrated some technologies into the schools our test scores were always beyond average scores. I think that the problem with our scores getting lower lies more with the teachers and the upbringing of the students than it does with whether they take tests well. To a certain extent it is a lame excuse that people use when they didn't study, or when a teacher didn't teach. I understand that some children get panic attacks before which hinders their scores, but as a teacher if we give students the tools they need to pass the test we are in turn giving them the courage they need to pass it. Think back to a time when you took a test... Did you study for it? Did you know the material from your teacher? Were you confident in your ability to own that test? Your answers should give you the proof to what I'm saying. Mr. Johnson makes a good point when he talks about getting the parents involved in the kids schooling. Parents are more busy these days with work, but they still need to stop and be with their children for just a few hours a day to understand and help them with problems, and to lift them up when they have done good. Or even when they haven't done too good.