Ever since I was a child I aspired to teach in a classroom someday.

At the time I was unsure what

grade level, where at, but I was sure about one thing: my love of social studies. I knew that when
I grew up I would teach social studies and share with kids how cool social studies really is and
how it effects their daily lives. The first blog post we completed this semester even further
inspired me to get into a classroom, revealing how students truly felt about social studies. The
statement from that passage which has haunted me all semester and which will probably raise my
neck hairs for a long time is that The most frequent student comment was that social studies
was boring. More often, boredom was attributed to social studies content, but teaching methods
were also mentioned. (Schug, Todd, Barry, p. 1984) I do not understand how history is
considered boring! Its the creation and in some cases tragic demise of entire empires and acts of
heroism which only some of the bravest men and women throughout the history of man could
accomplish. That leads to my first question, can you effectively entice people to learn and grasp
their full attention? Everyone has a textbook assigned for the course. The teacher has their
textbook at their podium, and your students have their own textbooks as well. Anyone can open
the book and pull the necessary facts, but do you as a teacher have what it takes to inspire them
to learn and capture all of their interest to ask questions? I am a big fan of asking questions. I
promote it, whenever I give a presentation I advise people to ask questions whenever they are
unclear about something to ask, so I may attempt to answer it or make note on what to add to
future lessons to make sure everyone is on the same base. Albert Einstein said the important
things is not to stop questioning, curiosity has its own reason for existing. That being said, my
second question for this prompt is are you presenting content in a way which encourages
students to look deeper into the topics to answer essential questions? I have had teachers who
inspired me to go look up more after a lesson and have led to some of my favorite stories to tell

people. If you can set the hook in a students mind and grasp their full attention, I believe their
possibilities are endless.

Can you effectively entice people to learn and grasp their full attention?
This has been a huge issue throughout classes Ive taken in previous semesters, high school and
college courses alike. Teachers are experts in their content areas and give lectures to their
students about things that will potentially be on future exams, yet I look around and see students
who are uninterested and look at the clock. When I am in Mr. Zemanskis classroom I see
students who are in the palm of his hand and are taking in everything he is saying. I believe
much of his success is correlated with his social tie with his students. He shows a genuine
interest in them and it is clear he wants all of them to succeed. With that bridge developed, the
kids trust him and want to come to his class. Page 53 of the previously mentioned Schug, Todd,
and Berry article says when students were asked why they preferred another subject as their
favorite, the students most frequent response mentioned active learning activities. Active
learning is a staple in Mr. Zemanskis classroom, a lot of activities are incorporated into his
lessons. Quizlet Live is one of the services he uses which the kids love. Anthony Wayne is a very
affluent school district and the students have chrome books, so the internet is at their fingertips.
Quizlet is a review tool which places the students into teams and is a race to a desired score set
by the instructor, and I honest to god have not seen such a hoopla in a classroom like the one
which is raised by Zemanskis use of Quizlet Live. I would like to clarify, it is a controlled
setting when the game occurs, it never gets out of hand. Since the game tests the students
knowledge, I believe it entices them to study more often and study harder because the constant
idea of winning Quizlet is a huge incentive along with performing well on the test.

Are you presenting content in a way which encourages students to look deeper into the topics to
answer essential questions?
An essential question must be crafted so that it provides students with an opportunity to reach
deeper understanding of key standards. (Bower and Owens, 2010). This quote is the basic
framework for this next question, and is one which I find to be extremely important for a teacher
performing self-evaluation. Are students enticed enough to look deeper than required in an
attempt to learn more about the content youre presenting? If your students are doing the bare
minimum when it comes to your work and sort of float by through your course, I think youre
doing something wrong as an educator. Now while some situations arent the best, I feel as
though you need to spark interest for your students. Ive talked about this in previous articles and
I believe that there is so much strain on content in this day in age (which I dont believe is a bad
thing, its important to know what youre teaching) we overlook the personal aspect of being a
teacher. And that is something I dont believe you can teach in a class, if you dont possess the
ability to connect with different types of people and make them work with you in return, how do
you create a classroom environment which encourages interest and sparks imagination? Mr.
Zemanski does this well, he slyly assigns take home assignments and inspires them to look more
into the topics assigned to them. The following morning, he sparks a debate about the topic and
has them incorporate the research they acquired the night before and use that to wrap up lessons.

My Thoughts
I understand this blog post is about social studies, but I find them to be kind of broad. While this
is the second post, Im still unsure which angle to take at these prompts when answering them.
Personally, I will admit I am biased with my strain on the social aspect of being a teacher, where

I have a good amount of knowledge about history compared to some students I dont compare to
them. I will admit though; I havent been able to see my field placement teacher for five weeks. I
have missed two due to sickness, but two other absences were due to him being at a conference,
and lastly the busses cancelling. So this blog post was difficult to put together, but back to more
of my own thoughts. My strong suit in the classroom is my social aspect. I have the ability to
make people talk and can spark discussion, and from what Ive seen discussion is a largely
efficient system in a classroom. Story telling is a huge thing I like and what better profession to
go into than teaching historic events? I believe that with taking more content courses, I can
sharpen my skills, become an even better teacher, and effectively change even more lives.

References
Bower, B., Lobdell, J., and Owens, S. (2010). Essential questions. Bring learning alive! Methods
to transform middle and high school social studies. Palo Alto, CA: Teachers Curriculum
Institute, pp. 226-228.
Schug, Mark C., Todd, Robert J., and Beery, R. (1984). Why Kids Dont Like Social Studies.
Social Education. pp. 47-53.