Week 10 Reflection

My time has almost come and gone at Clay-Battelle and these eight weeks have taught and shown me a whole lot more than I had expected to see. I know I still have one full week left so this is not the time to get caught up in reminiscing.
One thing that I will take away from my time here is wanting and hoping for more than what my students want and hope for. Many of these students here have had an attitude that almost guarantees them failure before they even start. Seeing that from my students hurts my heart. I'll only be with them for eight weeks but I have a good idea who'll succeed and who will have much more trouble at it.
Looking towards the future, this time has really got me thinking about the ways that I can help promote success for my students. What are ways that I can get content to stick to their brains and have them find it relevant to their lives. Before teaching here I'd say my philosophy for teaching was a lot different than it is now. Reflecting on what I've done and see the past seven weeks I'd have to say that seeing my students want to learn and strive for success is my one and ultimate goal. Granted I know that this might not be an attainable goal because there will be students down the line that will plain not want to be there in school, but I hope that those students will not make up the majority of my classes. It breaks my heart knowing that some of these students won't graduate and accomplish much of anything in school...not because of just knowing a certain subject(s) but because of the inability of them to try, at all!
I really hope in the future that I can help influence them in a way that they look at education as a mode of transportation to a successful destination. I'll be a car, van, bus, plane, whatever, as long as those future kids get to the destination they want through hard work and desire to succeed.
So in the upcoming days/weeks/months/years hopefully I'll find ways to help guide my students on that destination because I know I will not be able to handle and more importantly accept an accepted failure mindset...I just can't.