Apparently, Wisconsin is trying to be England with grey days full of little spits of rain. What's odd is that the sun will be shining in Illinois when I leave but by the time I get to Wisconsion, it's gone and we have grey clouds covering the sky. Unfortunately, days like that make me want to 1. go back to bed and wait for the sun 2. drink tremendous amounts of tea 3. eat scones in companion with the tea 4. read long British stories involving a wealthy wayward duke, a poor but beautiful woman, and a traumatic event that throws them together. Basically, anything by Jane Austen or a Bronte sister. Please notice that none of the things on my list actually involve anything that I have to get done today or should finish today. Oh well.
Tonight I have an appreciation dinner for one of my tutoring opportunities. I'm helping a very nice lady who's about my age study for her TOEFL test, which is the test that foreign born/non-native English speakers must take to enter grad school. She is looking at attending grad school to study ESL. She's originally from Columbia and speaks/writes/reads English very well but sometimes the little detail rules are difficult (as they can be for native speakers!!). Last night we were working on the difference between "effect" and "affect." I told her that's tough for me too! I get them mixed up all the time. She's a little nervous, I think, but working on being prepared. I hope it works out for her because it would be a great opportunity for her. Anyhow, the organization that hosts the tutoring is having a dinner at a local restaurant tonight. I really enjoy working with my friend and I'm hoping that my schedule will work out so that even though I need XX amount of hours of tutoring, I can keep helping her at least through her test. I think it would be cruel to stop tutoring just because my goal is achieved when her goal isn't yet.
I registered for classes this week and it looks as though I will be able to do my student teaching next fall. So in and out in a year and a half. Then it's onto finding a real job. This stresses me out quite a bit but as Matt reminds me: there are more teaching jobs in the world than there are museum jobs and if I found a museum job, then I will find a teaching job too! I appreciate his support but I'll feel better when I actually find a teaching job that doesn't include coaching football. However, by the time I finish, I will be able to teach: US history, World History, Government & Current Events, Economics, Psychology, and Geography. Surely, someone will want to hire me, right?
OK, faithful blog readers, I have a request to help me (sorry for being selfish!):
What was your favorite part about studying social studies in school and why?
4 years ago
8 comments:
Okay... first of all, of course they'll hire you! I mean, you can coach women's soccer right? Or volleyball? Or lacrosse? No... okay, then I guess you'll also have to direct the school play!
In all seriousness, us Conner girls are pretty bad people to ask what our favorite part of social studies was! We're pretty big nerds in that regard... I liked when my teachers let us choose our paper topics (though I'm sure a lot of kids hated that). And I loved all things interactive. Doesn't help much, hunh?
Oh dear, I RAISED the first posting social study "nerds"! And why is she that way?? Well, her mother was qualified to teach American and world history and Geography with THAT my major! Don't go looking for a job that features that one these days!
I enjoyed the few times a teacher managed to take history down to one person! The everyday man. sure big things influenced him but still, he had every day things to do and they made the big things happen.
If you want to read what a historian really deals with one of the best explainations I've ever read was in a Star Trek book! Yes, I know but one of the main characters is a historian! LOL
See if you can find "Ishmael".
I think the best part of history class was when I could actually piece together a string of events into a cohesive timeline. There were some very creative movies made of historic events by my classmates too.
You won't like my answer. Maybe you will, I don't know. I didn't like social studies...the sort we were taught in middle school. We had Indiana History and my teacher was frightening. I didn't even like sophomore history much. I liked the term paper. It was about the Civil War and I thought it was really interesting. Come to think of it, my teacher was really interested in the Civil War, and we was really dynamic when he was lecturing on that. Yes, I said lecture. He retired from teaching about 6 years after I graduated high school. I have never had in interactive history class, and that's part of why I'm so excited about you doing this. You will be able to get someone excited about history that has no clue they are excited about it.
I very much liked "cool" and unusual projects... I had a class (AP US History) tht was making a documentary in which each of us had a part -- an expert on the subject, a character, etc. -- and I don't remember if we ever finished it.
Same teacher did something that really #*$@ed me off -- the previous year my brother's AP US History class wrote a "journal" of a family traveling west on the Oregon Trail. They had to have a certain number of entries and use actual dates and stuff that might have happened on the trip. I was *so excited* about getting to do that project. BUT because I worked at Conner at the time, she decided NOT to do that project -- JUST BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE ENJOYED IT TOO MUCH (she actually admitted it, in those words) -- and instead had us pick a Native American tribe and do a fairly thorough report on them. Written. Excuse me?!?! It SUCK-DIDDLY-UCKED.
How about our favorite Econ class activities?
So I'm a little late on this... :) I liked the projects! Anything interactive - studying states etc.
Girl- first off you are very hirable. I would tell you not to worry, but I know you won't be able to do that. So just do what you can and have faith.
Boy's Best Part of Social Studies = Mr. Hoffman's tale of how when he was in charge at a docks in Vietnam he accidentally dropped two $60k tanks off of a transport barge and into the river (did you know tanks don't have parking breaks, Neither did Girl and I's history teacher. The tanks are still at the bottom of the river, they never could find them in all the muck and whatnot.) and how he still fears to this day the US army will figure it out and send him the bill. Good Times.
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