I have sat myself down in a classroom for the last fifteen years of my life engulfed in an education system that I had no control over. I stand here today and say I am going to enter the role of teaching so that my future class has control over their futures. In this position, I want to verbally write out reasoning as to why our education system could be better. I do not want to disregard the past because there is no use to that, but instead, analyze potential positive impacts and implement them.
I want to write a complaint letter so I can start to fully absorb what it looks like to define change. Naming visible, conceptualized issues can be difficult for one. But two, understanding the context behind those issues is a whole other ballgame. Writing this will be a good reflection process along with a satisfying ‘carry-through’ plan. As my friends like to remind me, one of my main personality traits is that I’m a fixer. I tend to be an optimist that wants to think of a way a situation could be better. Working through a complaint letter could help me validate who I am as a person. Ultimately, I was waffling between “complaining” about environmental issues and the logistics of my future career. I feel very passionate about the fact that our Earth needs to be taken care of respectively because it our home, classroom, and jungle gym. One of my goals consists of letting my students explore their learning environment in all its forms including the natural world. Nature gives them a unique opportunity to feel authentically connected to the world at large, making it more likely they develop an interest in their personal worth in association to a higher purpose of learning. Plus, Earth provides a valuable thinking place to see their life from a different perspective. Maybe learning outside will help them be less self-centered and learn to enjoy their surroundings. Maybe it will simply give them a peace that walls do not give them. Whatever their need is, I believe nature could be a silver-lining in the learning environment. The logistics of schools are hard to outline since they do vary from district to district or even school to school. All in all, schools aren’t getting enough money to fully care for their students. One of the problems lay in the fact that jails get more money than schools which is show priority unfortunately. Another issue is that lower-income schools get the left-overs when it comes to money since their standardized testing scores won’t be as high. Why has this blanket of tests crippled the education system? I’m hoping to dive into this. Writing a complaint is going to be out of my comfort zone because I have to admit to someone that I want my idea to replace theirs. It will help me develop my professional ‘stick-up-for-myself’ ability which is highly needed in an imperfect world. The end result of this letter will be entirely worth it over and over again. Here’s to a better tomorrow.
3 Comments
10/6/2018 08:41:05 pm
I am very interested in your idea to fix the classroom by not focusing on just the classroom. The idea of students being locked in a building for 8 hours straight doesn't make sense at all for a positive learning environment. Even walks to different buildings on campus helps to clear minds and allow them to absorb new information. It is definitely a Kelly kind of idea to want to offer suggestions to fix things while being worried about sounding to mean. I can't wait to watch your writing process.
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I'm super excited to see what you do with this. I think this is a really good genre to think about assigning to high schoolers for this project because it requires taking a stance on something and that can be really empowering for adolescence. It might just my inability to interpret, but are you complaining about both the environment and school, or just one?
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Greetings!I'm Kelly! I like to find beauty in what might seem mundane to us over time and bring to life what we experience each day. Check out the About Me tab for an additional look at who I am. Archives
July 2019
Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is. |