Cameon Shiflett

Phone: 205-914-9083 Email: cnshiflett@crimson.ua.edu

August 23, 2010

CAT 200- Dr. Timothy Lewis

Assignment 1    

Children, and their ability and excitement to learn new things has always fascinated me. Throughout my younger years, I would spend countless hours playing “teacher” with my sister, pretending that I was the teacher and she was the student. We would have time for Math, English, Reading, and of course discipline when needed. As I “corrected” the problems that she got wrong and made an effort to teacher her how to do the problems correctly, I soon realized that everyone learns differently and has some require a different method than the status quo.  My sister was actually the main reason that I went into Education.

                As a student, I was blessed to have incredible teachers. I had teachers that were not afraid to be immersed in their jobs and were teachers for more than a reason than the fact that it was an easier degree to get than most. I had teachers that took the brightest of kids and took them a step further, challenging them to be the best they could be. Making them realize that their best might not be everyone else’s best. I had teachers that recognized my ability, and placed me in gifted classes which later turned into AP classes, that enriched my life more than I can say. I had teachers that proved to be my inspiration, for what I wanted to be in life and for the kind of person that I would become. My sister, however was not as fortunate.

                My sister was dealt the misfortune of getting teachers that did not really care about their jobs. They did not care about what my sister learned or what she was able to do. They took her ability, and grouped it with everyone else’s. When they were there and didn’t have a substitute teaching the class, they would watch movies that had nothing to do with the lesson they were learning. My sister is incredibly intelligent, and works very hard to make the grades that she has received, but I can’t help but think that her, along with many other children have been handicapped because of teachers that look at their profession as a job and not as an opportunity to influence children’s lives.

                In the 8^th grade, I was given the chance to work with a second grade class for my enrichment period, and also asked for the opportunity to work with the Special Education children in my school. Being able to sit with these kids, I was able to see how technology helps kids learn. From being able to work with second graders that were above their average class mates in things like multiplication tables, to watching the Special Education children working on things like typing and learning how to do other things on the computer, it made me realize that technology, whether we like it or not, has a huge impact on the kids in today’s schools.

Many teachers are not “up to date” on the technologies that are out there and instead of elected officials putting money into our schools and our educators, they are focused on other things , which in my opinion, prevents the kids in their classroom from achieving all that they can achieve. There are games and programs other than Facebook and Guitar Hero that are so beneficial to a child and everything that they can learn. The second grade class that I got to be a part of used Rosetta Stone which was helping them to learn another language. The Special Education class was using technology to teach those kids how to type, and to even do simple things like surf the internet to learn more about things that interested them such as cars or history. Technology is such a useful tool that teachers have, that should be utilized in furthering children’s minds.