I had a "FIRE-UP!" conference for student-teachers today. I went to a number of sessions - it's pretty easy to tell what I'm interested in from the sessions. I attended "Connecting with kids in Crisis", "Urban Education", "Students of Poverty as Diverse Learners" and then a froofy one about your 'true colors' (a personality test). (Dad, I think you and I are gold.) I say froofy because it doesn't seem like a personality test if they ask you to look at the typical description and place yourself in it.
But I really valued it because I needed a reminder that it's okay to care about people. In fact, I have some questions about life that I'd like to hear your thoughts about. I know that, as a teacher, I will not reach everybody and get everybody to succeed in math or even get everybody to understand that I actually care about them, or potentially, I probably won't care about everybody like I should. As a naive little teacher, I have that as a goal of mine: not just to care about everybody, but to attempt to show them.
How much is too much in caring for the students? Am I setting my goals too high? Not high enough? How do I stop from becoming complacent? Or is complacency not always a bad thing (am I using a poor word choice here?) I would love to know your thoughts or advice.
Random update: first swim meet on Saturday! It's a girls-only meet against St. Mary's at Notre Dame's pool. Which can only mean two things:
1. Awesome pool experience.
2. Hot seat (i.e. mushy engagement stories) with the coaches over the bus microphone.
Too much math on the brain... This happens to me. Every night.
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5 comments:
In that math comic did you notice the E^(Pi*i) + 1 = 0? I didn't realize that was what was going on at first. I just learned about that the other day for my GRE.
Also, math in my dreams is a blessing I am proud to say we have in common!
and Diana, the other math brain, says: E(at) PI(e)
hmm... joel, i understand yours significantly less than diana's...
I bet Kristi can find some Pi coupons :) (floor pi?)
Julie, never give up on caring. Maybe in addition to your current goal.. you could hope to 'reach' x number of people/students per year/semester even though you care about everyone. And go for the tougher cases..
Maybe those that you do reach will also reach out to others..which will really mean you reached many more. (Maybe Joel can put that into an equation) Hopefully you get what I mean. Easier to say, harder to write.
Always proud to be gold! Now, what exactly does that mean?
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