Future Teacher, Forever Student

Nowadays, young adult literature covers a wide range of themes, offering commentary on everything from self-image and confidence to abuse and death. While the recent release of the Netflix series (based on the novel) 13 Reasons Why   has arguably created a negative association between young adults and literature, there are plenty of YA novels that deal with teenage realities beyond suicide. Julie Murphy's Dumplin' , a novel full of southern charm and the narrator Willowdean's no non-sense sarcasm, provides the reader with a classic battle between feeling good in your own skin and wanting to fit in with society's bodily expectations. Willowdean, an overweight 11th grader in a town obsessed with an annual beauty pageant, can't seem to get away from the local pressures to be a beauty queen. Usually comfortable in her skin, Willowdean starts to question her confidence when a co-worker shows romantic interest. Although dealing with a serious topic that could...

Photo from goodpsychology.files.wordpress.com Looking back on my high school days, I often wonder how I managed to retain most of the information I learned. By the end of senior year, I was mentally exhausted and completely convinced that senioritis wouldn't wear off in time for college. Unmotivated and disinterested, the only time the classroom seemed interesting was when I was working on something that related to my future college career. After studying the vast changes that occur in the adolescent brain, I'm not surprised that "senioritis" has become a popular term to describe the lack of motivation that comes with senior year. What I am surprised about is that senioritis isn't actually "teen-itis," especially since secondary education seems less geared toward formal thought processes and more focused on lower-level thinking. The biological changes that take place during adolescence provoke an increased desire for peer acceptance, risk-ta...

As the second week of the spring semester came to a close here at Saint Michael's College, I had the pleasure of taking on an interesting task during one of my work study shifts. I'm fortunate enough to work as the Undergraduate Office Assistant for the college's Education Department. Members of the Ed. Department, both students and teachers alike, are always busy managing different projects and assignments. One project from before my time at the college-- a small section of the department's corridor displaying different math skills by arranging pennies into sample problems on the wall-- has survived the test of time (save a few pennies or so).          Preparing for the coming Admissions Open houses, I was asked to replace any of the pennies that had fallen off of the wall, as well as any explanatory signs that had been torn or otherwise damaged. While I was going through the different math problems to see where pennies were missing, I discovered...

While I know there are scarier things in the world, I consider failure to be among my top fears. Especially as a college student, there are several factors in the higher education world that eliminate the option of failure altogether: scholarships, graduate school, future employment, honors societies, the ability to participate in extracurricular activities, and the scariest numbers under 5 (that is, the G.P.A.) just to name a few. However, the TED Talk presented by Astro Teller on "The unexpected benefit of celebrating failure" sheds some light on the shadowy doom no ones wants to talk about. Highlighting the secret to the successes of his company, X (formerly Google X), Teller offers insight on the benefits of failure. His project teams are encouraged to think big, tackle the largest obstacles to their ideas head-on, and abandon (essentially, fail) their projects when the obstacles become impractical to overcome. Employees are rewarded for failing projects that just ar...

Source: http://www.perjakarta.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/welcome1.jpg Hello, and welcome to my blog! My name is Allison, and I am currently studying Secondary Education and American Studies in preparation for a grades 5-12 Social Studies teacher's license. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to teach. Originally, I started my higher education as an Elementary Education major, but I quickly fell in love with the middle and high school grades after a series of school visits to surrounding secondary schools. I can't say the change was a total surprise-- I was a teacher's assistant in a history class during my senior year of high school and loved every second of it. Confident in my choice to pursue Secondary Education, along with my passion for history of all kinds, I look forward to continuing my journey to professional education. With this blog as my medium, I plan to document my experiences, respond to prompts from my Education professors, and develop a...