Teaching Goals

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There are several reasons that I would chose to teach in New Orleans. The first would be that I have family in New Orleans and it would be nice to get closer to them while at the same time doing something that would make a difference. I feel that the New Orleans schools are a place where I could make a difference. My goal in becoming a teacher has been to make a difference in the life of at least one teenager and hopefully many more. I want to do what my high school history teacher did. I want to make the past real to students. It is my belief that given the opportunity I could change people’s lives. I could get them interested in the subject matter by bringing it to life with new technologies and maybe, just maybe, make that one student who wants to drop out stay in school and head off to college. I have always felt that the best way for a teacher to make a difference is not to stick with what they are comfortable with, which for me is a small town in rural Vermont, but instead to challenge themselves. After all it was apparent to me in school that the teachers that had settled for what came easy were the teachers that the students did not respect. I believe that the students respect a person who is eager to step out of their element in order to try to make a difference. It shows the students that the person is genuine and truly wants to try. That is why I want to teach in the high need areas in the country and in New Orleans specifically. I believe that stepping out of my comfort zone will enable me to complete my goals, while at the same time, hopefully, I can become a role model. A role model, that tells the students that they too need to step out of their comfort zone and strive to make it to college.

I believe that ther...

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... to be flexible and change my teaching when I see that it is not working for the students, or I come across a topic that really interests them. The best example of this was teaching about labor movements. The students were acting bored so I went on a little tangent about violent strikes and the students became interested. I showed them the impact of a strike on a town a few miles from where I am teaching and they really became engaged, the assessment that they took on labor unions had one of the highest average grades of any of the tests I have given. I do not have any hard evidence of reaching all students as I have not been at it long enough to really gauge the progress of the students, but I feel that my techniques have been successful thus far. This question really comes down to the fact that I lack experience but have many ideas that are currently being tested.

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