Teacher Panel

On Monday evening, we had the privilege of hearing a group of Luther graduates discuss their experiences teaching thus far. I thought it was really interesting to hear all of their unique stories. From an elementary teacher, to a special education teacher, to a physical education teacher, they all have had various experiences in the real world thus far. Despite the fact that they all teach in different areas, I thought it was interesting to hear that they were all facing similar issues. They all brought up the issue of technology and how the students are so dependent on it, as well as the constant use of a cell phone by the students. As time goes on, I’m sure that this issue with technology will continue to occur. Aside from the issues that they are facing, one part of the discussion that really stuck out in my mind was the experience one woman had with student teaching. She was able to go and do part of her student teaching in Brussels. I’m sure that was an unbelievable experience and would like to explore something like that for myself when the time comes. All in all, I felt as though I learned a lot about all of these teachers and am eager to begin teaching in a few years.
Overall, I really enjoyed hearing the experiences of all of the teachers; however, I would eventually like to hear from teachers who are in a more diverse environment. These were all white teachers who are primarily teaching white students in small schools in northeast Iowa. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I would like to hear about different experiences teachers are having in other parts of the country or the world. I hope that throughout my experience at Luther I will be prepared to not only deal with the white population in my classroom, but with the diverse population as well.


More information on the Luther Education Department can be found at:
http://education.luther.edu/

Paper Clips

Both Educational Psychology classes were given the opportunity to watch the movie "Paper Clips". This is a film about a group of middle school students from a little town of Whitwell, Tennessee who did an unbelievable project. Since the majority of the population was homogeneous, the vice principal decided to educate the students more about the Holocaust. By doing this, the students would be exposed to a completely different culture and they would be able to develop a better understanding of diversity and stereotypes. I was completely blown away by how captivated the students were by this topic, and how passionate they were about learning more about it. It was extremely moving and inspiring to see a group of young people care so much about the Holocaust and the millions of people whose lives were dramatically changed because of this tragic event. I thought that the teachers, principal, and vice principal did a phenomenal job instilling interest and excitement within these children. As future educators, I think there are definitely some major lessons we can learn from these individuals, and hopefully we can apply them to our own classrooms one day.
Once we finished watching this movie, we were able to talk about it within our discussion groups. One of the issues brought up was when is it appropriate to teach issues, such as the Holocaust, to children. I actually was in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic over J-term studying the Holocaust. While there, we were given the opportunity to visit five previous concentration camps, along with various museums and important sites related to the Holocaust. While trying to make sense of all of this information, it just became more clear to me how vital it truly is to educate our young individuals about events such as the Holocaust. By doing so, we can teach them what evils stem from negative stereotypes, discrimination, and hatred. Hopefully then can we help to stop an event, such as the Holocaust, from ever happening again. All in all, I was very moved by this movie and felt a great sense of hope in our young children, especially after returning from studying the Holocaust.


More information found at:
http://www.paperclipsmovie.com/synopsis.php