Negative Teaching Blog #1

When I am packing my mind tends to wonder and today while I was packing my clothes I started to think about all of the bad teachers I have had through out the years. While thinking about them I focused in on why they were bad teachers and noticed that a lot of bad teachers have similar personality traits or teaching styles. I decided to compile a list of these traits/teaching styles and point out why these are bad for teachers to have. Each week I will write a blog about a specific trait that I think teachers from Pre-K through university professors shouldn't have. After I finish this list I will to a contrasting list talking about traits I think teachers should have.


1. Lack of enthusiasm about teaching/the subject

This is an issue that I have seen with quite of few teachers I have had and even with some education students I know. An example of a teacher that has no enthusiasm for teaching is one who considers teaching a chore, seems bored while teaching, seems uninterested in teaching in general or teaching a specific subject. Unenthusiastic teachers are easily identified since they often seemed annoyed with students and even other teachers for no easily placed reason. These are often people who considered teaching an easy profession so instead of following their actual dream they decided to pursue a seemingly easy career. Their annoyance comes from their inability to accept that teaching is a full-time job that is a lot more difficult than they expected. Even though teachers get a two month vacation during the summer, several teachers are required to go to teaching conferences during the summer, teach summer school, or find a part-time job for the summer if they don't do the first two.

There are also teachers that have no interest in teaching a subject, but they decided to get certified to teach it because they perceived it to be an easy subject. I see this the most in elementary school teachers who prefer teaching one subject (such as math) to teaching another subject (such as history). That teacher may be really enthusiastic about teaching mathematics, but once that teacher starts talking about history that enthusiasm goes away and they begin to seem bored and uninterested.

I know an education major (whom I shall refer to as A) who shall face the problem of lack of enthusiasm. When I asked A why she wanted to be a teacher she basically said that she only wanted to be a teacher because her mom is a teacher. It wasn't because A personally wanted to become a teacher, she just wanted to do the same thing that her mom does. A's major problem is that she wants to be an early education major meaning she would have to teach all subjects to students in K-4th grade. The problem with this is that A does not care about subjects aside from math. She shows little to no interests in subjects such as history, science, and etc. I even recommended to A that she should change her degree plan to the math secondary certification degree (Angelo State University actually offers a teacher certification degree for nearly every subject) and she said that she didn't want to do that because that isn't what her mother does.

A person shouldn't want a career just because that is the career that one of their parents has. A person can want the same career as their parent, but the fact that their parent has that job should never be the only reason a person wants that job. A person should want the career that they themselves want. I don't want to be a college professor like my dad or a bookstore manager like my mom. I want to be a secondary social studies teacher and I will fight tooth and nail for that job. In all honesty I pity A's future students because teachers that are unenthusiastic tend to teach purely by the textbook the second trait which I shall talk about next week.

Links to my tumblr and formspring

My formspring
http://www.formspring.me/MeghanJH91

My tumblr
http://meghanjh91.tumblr.com/

Taking a shot at the Cullens' back-stories

Well I am finally starting on it. My own mini-series that is taking a shot at the Twilight characters' back-stories (specifically Carlisle's, Rosalie's, Edward's, Alice's, and Jasper's). A major annoyance of mine that deals with the Twilight series is the large amount of historical inaccuracies that occur in both the books and the back stories of the characters. I will write about the characters in the order that they were born (so Carlisle first, then Jasper, then Edward and Alice, and finally Rosalie). I will be pointing out what is historically inaccurate with each of those character's back-stories based on my own research into European and American history. Each essay will follow a similar layout which is explained below.

1. I will give a brief summary on the character's original back-story.

2. I will break down each part of the back story and talk about each historical inaccuracy that I notice. These inaccuracies will include everything from fashion, slang, ideologies, religious beliefs, and so on and so forth.

3. I will explain how the inaccuracies I find create more plot holes and weaken the Cullens even more as characters.

4. Finally I will present a picture of how I think the character would look if their back-stories were historically accurate and explain how if some of the historical inaccuracies were fixed that some of the Cullens' could've been stronger characters.

I am just starting on Carlisle, and I will be honest, Carlisle's and Rosalie's will be the longest due to the extraordinary number of historical inaccuracies in the back stories of those two characters.

Research, research, oh how I love to research

Those of you who know me IRL know how much I like to research random stuff and currently I am working on researching two things. The first research project I am working on is researching my great-grandmother Margaret "Maggie" Smith. This project will probably be put off until the summer though so that I will be able to go to the Big Bend National Park and do some research there. My other research project is about teaching history. I figured since that is what I am planning on teaching, I might as well get started on researching different teaching methods and philosophies about history. I will be focusing more on researching how to teach history this semester since that is honestly easier research than looking up information on my great-grandmother.

I nearly had a happy attack today when I went into ASU's library and found about 20 books on teaching history and social studies. Some of the ones I found are pretty interesting, but a lot of them were really boring and uninteresting. One that I really heavily disliked seemed like the author was talking down to the reader, but the one I liked the best seemed like he was being open and friendly with the reader (plus he wrote a lot of awesome quotes about history). I am gonna check out a few of the books that I really enjoyed and sit down with a notebook and write down all of the tips that I really like and think are useful, and I will probably list them in a later blog. *happy dance* This is gonna be so much fun!

And yes, I know I am a dork for getting all excited about researching. >>

Spring Break

Well as planned I haven't had a really eventful spring break, I mostly have spent it hanging around the house with my boyfriend watching TV and stuff like that. My knee is feeling a little better, but it still hurts quite a bit. I have to go with my boyfriend tomorrow on a six hour drive to pick my siblings up from my dad's, but I plan to be riding in the back seat the whole drive with my knee propped up and iced properly. I am actually glad that I have gotten a good bit of homework done this week. All that is left is to read some short stories for my English class and to read a couple books for my comparative history class.

A couple things I learned this week

- My boyfriend is a sweetie, since I can't bend my knee properly to shave my legs myself he helped me shave them (while I was wearing a pair of shorts)

- My family can't just let an abandoned dog be alone. We rescued a little black scottie this week that I have dubbed Toto.

- I get headaches easily for some reason, especially when my knee is hurting.

Ancestry.com and knee pains

Well if you are one of my facebook friends you may have seen my post last week about me starting to research my family on ancestry.com. Let's just say in the span of a few days I have managed to find so much information about my family that it still shocks me. Below are some things I learned about both sides of my family.

Dad's side
1. A lot of my male ancestors on this side fought in the civil war
2. I am descended from Pope Clement VI's brother (who Clement VI made a pope)
3. I am descended from a french aristocratic family
4. Some of my ancestors were original settlers at Plymouth
5. A lot of my ancestors on this side were either Irish, German, French, or British

Mom's side
1. A lot of the men on this side faked their age to serve in the military (including my grandfather)
2. The majority of my ancestors on this side came from Ireland and Britain
3. One of my ancestors on this side was a Tennessee militia man and a colonial soldier
4. A lot of my male ancestors have the exact same name, and this makes discussing them or finding info on just one of them very hard
5. It is hard to find info on my Great-grandfather's side of the family

On a less fun note, for the past few weeks my knee has been hurting so bad it seems like that crazy lady from Stephen King's Misery has gone after my knee (I forgot her name at the moment). Turns out that I have cartilage wearing on my right knee so bad that if I was older the doctor would recommend that I have surgery. He said I also had some in my left knee. I am supposed to go see him for a MRI later this month, but because next week is spring break I will be taking advantage of my week off and using next week to stretch and relax my knee as much as possible to help it heal. The doctor I went to works at WTMA, and he was really nice. He told me to take two Aleve every morning and another two every evening (I need to get some tomorrow at HEB), a couple exercises that will help strengthen my knee and hopefully lessen the pain, and he gave me a couple tips about how to change my daily habits to lessen the pain.

Changing up my blog

Well due to the lack of time I have to research for my web show, I am going to change my blog into a more normal blog. This means that I will be trying to post every 1-2 weeks about things that are going on in my life like school, work, and etc. I am doing this mostly because I am going to the doctor this week to have my knee (that has been hurting pretty bad for nearly three weeks now) to have it checked out. I am going to be using my blog to update my family and friends about what is going on with my knee, and if I have to get surgery on my knee I will be using this blog to update my family and friends on my recovery and rehab.