Nature of Schools

As a future educator one of the things that I must do is to first begin with educating myself. Attending a College or University that works for you is an absolute must, if you do not like it for any reason, you will not get what you need or desire out of the experience. I know this fro personal experience and made it a point when I decided to return many years later to make sure that the school fit me as well as I fit it.

On my journey, there are many classes (required and elected) that I will be taking, one of them is a class classed Nature of Schools which is a philosophical journey of what the Educational system is as a whole, while exploring up and coming trends. These trends can be something as simple as integrating technology (I say simple because we live in an age where everyone has a cell phone) or as thought provoking as keeping an open mind between the traditional methods of teaching, versus those that are much more controversial such as homeschooling.

The class offers an exploration of these different topics, plus the added bonus, each student within the class brings a different position or thought on the same topic, which creates an entirely new level of thinking. More importantly the format that is used is completely "high-tech" so in addition to the material, this forces those that are not so technologically advanced to continue to stretch themselves in their own personal learning and growth.

It is hard to say that one can learn alot of the class, yes there was a great deal of information that was provided and a considerable amount of reading and research. But like anything else the information and theories will change again before I reach the classroom. I believe that the information that I did get from this class was how to obtain new information, keep on top of current trends, how to navigate the information and apply what is pertinent to the classroom, eliminate opinions that have not educational merit, along with a wide variety of technology applications that I had not heard of prior to taking the class.

The class was fun and engaging, meeting furture colleagues that natural became friends was the cherry on top and since the College has a moderate staff, I know that I will take another class with Dr. Smirnova again and I welcome the chance.