The last two weeks of my practicum have gone smoothly. My CT and I are just working on getting a schedule set up and looking at what lessons I will teach a some point this semester. On that end everything has been going swimmingly.
When it comes to the students, they all are a good group of kids, but they are making me feel like an old 33 year old. During one class the students were looking at photography and what makes for a good and bad picture. They were looking through older yearbooks, everything form 1990 to 2000. One of the students was looking for a 1993-1994 edition, to find pictures of his parents. That gave me a moment of pause, I was a freshman in high school that year and this kid is looking for his parents.
That was just one of several over that last year that has made me think about my age. The other one happened a year ago when I was working at a middle school. The students were to look up words in a dictionary, define them and then write two sentences using that word. Well, one of the students asked me, "why do we have to use a dictionary, isn't that what the Internet is for." That threw me for a loop. So I explained to this student that back when I was their age, the dictionary was my Internet and it is always a good skill to have, just in case we lose power and don't have the benefit of a computer. Needless to say they didn't like that answer, but they were good students and got back to work.
Each of these experience has made me think, good gravy am I getting old?
I think this post is very funny =) I am only 20 and and I grew up using the library and using huge Mac computers in school. It was I think a generation behind me when computers in schools became a huge deal. It is amazing how much has changed in the last ten years.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher I think an age gap can have its pros and cons. Most definitely the students will respect a person who is older, they will look to you as an adult. Negatively there is a generation gap but, that is where I think teaching is a great career because it causes you to adapt with the culture of your students.
This is funny! I am two years older than you and my four children are all in middle school and high school. The generation gap sneaks up really quickly. I mean, think about it, we're in school for 13 years, then graduate. How different does the world seem to someone who is in kindergarten right now vs. someone who is a senior in high school? Our age difference from these students is even bigger than that. The great thing is that we are all people living on the same planet. We still have more in common than we do differences.
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