Digital Primary Sources

I think that primary sources can be extremely important teaching tools at every level of Education. Until the development of the Internet, teachers essentially had the choice of not using primary sources or of using primary sources out of set workbooks. In most locations teachers did not have ready access to collections of these sources and even then time constraints made it almost impossible for them to incorporate primary sources of their choosing in their lesson plane. Even for professors at major research universities it was a challenge to use these sources in their classes. Now a teacher in Missoula has access to an incredible amount of information from around the world. This change is revolutionary and has happened amazingly quickly and yet I think we are so used to technology that we sometimes do not realize some of the advantages we have over teachers from a generation ago and take our access to this information for granted. I think the attraction, or perhaps the peril, of digital primary sources is that with so much more material at our fingertips we have a lot more freedom to approach topics in creative ways than we would have before. I think they do present us with more opportunities to teach students how to think critically.
I would use primary sources in one of three ways. One would be for them to be a supplement for what we are talking about. For example when discussing Woodrow Wilson, i’d have a slide of him appear behind me. The second would be a step up Bloom’s taxonomy and would involve students responding to digital primary sources. For instance we could brainstorm what a World War I era propaganda poster meant and what the government hoped to achieve with it. The third, and least common, way would be to drive class. Students would have assignments that would call on them to use their research and evaluative skills in order to find primary source materials of their own that represented the concepts that we have been talking about in class.

The Importance of a Tolerant Classroom

I think that one of the qualities that a good teacher has to have is the ability to create a tolerant classroom. By that I mean a classroom where all students feel free to voice their opinions and offer their perspectives without fear of ridicule from me or from their fellow students. Fostering such an environment has several positive effects. The first is that it encourages students to engage and actively participate. If a student fears being shot down then they are less likely to speak up in class and less likely to pay attention.

Another consequence of having a class where students feel free to express themselves is that the students will be challenged by more perspectives than I could possibly bring to the class as a teacher. In a diverse classroom there could be an especially large number of opinions expressed. Students who participate will also be forced to learn how to respectfully debate and defend their ideas in conversations with differing perspectives and those types of skills are very valuable in life.

While I strongly believe in creating a classroom environment that encourages students to freely voice opinions, I do think there have to be some limits. I do feel like it is my responsibility to step in when racist or homophobic comments are made for instance.
I hope to be able to foster a tolerant environment in my classroom where students are free to express themselves for the reasons I have described above. Creating this sort of environment will not be easy but I think it starts with me setting a good example. I can’t be dismissive of the ideas of my students if they don’t fit in with my beliefs and when correcting factual errors I have to do so in a way that doesn’t make the student feel stupid. If I come across as dismissive or make students feel unduly embarrassed for making mistakes then I will lose any chance I have of creating an open environment. Ironically part of creating a tolerant environment will include, at least initially, policing student interaction. I will have to be quick to step in if a student is mocking other students who he or she disagrees with and is making people in the class feel uncomfortable about entering into discussion. I think one of the most important aspects of creating this sort of environment comes down to the composition of your class. The more students you have who have behavioral issues and who tend to try to pick on other speakers or to try to show each other up, the harder it is to overcome that element of negativity.

Educational Biography

My desire to teach social studies comes from my own love of working with kids, my interest in history, and great history teachers who I have been blessed to have. I have always known that I enjoyed working with kids both at and outside of a school setting. I have worked with students from pre-kindergarten to college in a variety of settings and without exception have enjoyed myself and felt rewarded in those jobs. I am energized by the curiosity of some students, enjoy being able to help students develop thinking skills, love the constant interaction with people that you have in an academic setting, and love the feeling of accomplishment I have when a lightbulb goes off for a student who had been struggling.

Beyond enjoying working with kids, a good teacher must have a strong interest in what he teaches. This interest in history has always been there for me and without it I would not be entering this field. As a first grader I remember scouring the school library for books on World War II and I’ve never lost that interest. Learning about history would have been little more than a pastime had it not been for the quality of social studies teachers that I have had over the years. It was great teachers who took this interest and turned it into a love. While I had several good social studies teachers in middle school and early high school, my first great influence was my eleventh grade AP Modern European History teacher. He showed me that understanding history takes more than just knowing names and dates and that to really understand anything about history you have to be able to think critically and make connections between the facts your learned in class. I already loved history but it became much more exciting and interesting to me when I felt empowered to try to interpret events and movements for myself and not to rely on the interpretations of teachers and textbooks. He prepared me well for history courses at Davidson and after taking him it was almost a foregone conclusion that I’d be a history major. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had not taken his classes that I would not be in this program today. I hope to have the same success with some of my students that he had with me.

My basic teaching philosophy is based on my own experience and on what I thought my best teachers did effectively. I believe that facts are very important but I would not consider myself a success as a teacher if I simply conveyed information no matter how well my students retained it or did on end of course tests. The lesson I’ve learned is that the best teachers are those who not only teach you when the Battle of Hastings was but who taught you to question what you read and to try to come up with your own informed interpretations of the things we studied. I do not recall most of the names and dates that I have learned over the years but the analytical skills that my favorite teachers helped foster in me help me on a daily basis and in a variety of contexts well beyond social studies.

Having a teaching philosophy is important but even the best philosophy does not make you a good teacher. While there are many qualities that can help make someone a good teacher, I believe that two qualities are absolutely essential. The first quality that a good teacher must have is content mastery. If you do not have a firm grasp of the content that you have been hired to teach, no amount of pedagogical skill, creativity, or enthusiasm can make you a good teacher. The second essential quality that a good teacher must have is flexibility. Good teachers are not tied to a lesson plans and methods that they have used in the past. A good teacher understands what a class and certain students respond to and tailors his lessons and teaching techniques accordingly. He does this even if it means that he has to take different approaches with different classes or sections and if he has to replace lesson plans that have worked with past classes.