November 25th, 2009

carecare

Woohoo! I'm famous and popular...online!! Just kidding!!

I did the google-your-name thing and my work website comes up as the #23rd entry! Woohoo! (My students access my website a lot, so I was wondering just how popular it was...yes, I am a dork)

Right after college, I joined the Teach For America movement in Los Angeles and during those two years, worked as a science teacher at a school in East Los Angeles. Then I got a great opportunity to help start a middle school in downtown Los Angeles as a science/math middle school teacher and the science coordinator at the school. After two years there, I got married and started working at a fairly well-known charter high school down here in SD county (which, with just some careful observation, you can easily find out its name if you so desire). Needless to say, I've accrued some teaching experience throughout the years in different areas and at schools with fairly different views on education.

Somehow, (yes it surprises me every year when I think about it), I'm still in the teaching profession. And I think I've stuck with it because I'm still searching for that perfect classroom and perfect school. I've taught at a very traditional middle school in East LA, then a let's-try-to-shake-up-public-education type school (but was still plagued with many typical public school problems) and now, I'm at a fairly progressive charter school that believes that project-based learning is the way to teach students.

I think I become jaded as the years of teaching go by. I thought this school that I'm at is the wave of the future in education, but I'm not quite sure it's the model that American education should adopt. I'm still not convinced that it's ok to not teach traditional topics in math, science or humanities because students won't use them in the future. Aren't we cheating them out of the one chance they have to learn geometric proofs or balancing chemical equations? Does everything really have to relate to the real-world or be useful in their future lives? Can't we just teach for the sake of learning? Is it okay that there are gaps in a student's education because they spent so long learning one narrow part of a subject, but missed out on everything else?

I know that nothing's perfect, especially when it comes to things like government initiatives and programs and institutions that are meant to serve the broad American public. But because I'm idealistic (and naive I suppose), I still believe that somewhere out there, in America, there is a public school that's not so dysfunctional. A school that engages all students in learning AND adequately prepares them for college and/or the working world. Or maybe not.

Maybe it's time for me to leave the classroom and explore other options in the educational field. I might try my hand at changing the American education system -- because, it's such a mess and so freakin' frustrating sometimes and someone needs to help fix it!