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October 12 – Week 5
October 14th, 2007 by reimer
No school visits this week but time spent in the classroom at the University. There was a presentation on home schooling during the Wednesday session, very informative, regarding the personal experience of the presenting parent. I believe every parent has the right to teach and educate their own children as they see fit but , in my opinion, the best interest of the child is sometimes overshadowed by personal biases or experiences of the parent towards a specific program or institution. As for my own children, I will have to weigh out the pros and cons as they apply to us as parents and the type of education I want to have them exposed to, but would truly hope I will be able to see enough of the positives within the public school system to send my own children there, if that is where I am to teach.
Blane Despres posted a comment in response to an ongoing conversation in the discussions page and his words have caused me to re-think about my views on the subject of home schooling. First off, I have no real experience with it and my children are not yet of school age so my take on the subject is strictly hypothetical. Second, I imagine there are many reasons and even many more experiences for home schooling, hence the growing number of students, which I don`t have any idea about so I do think my initial view on homeschooling is skewed toward my own personal lack of knowledge about it. In the future I will attempt to be more open minded and get the facts before passing judgement.
The Technology Education program is establishing an electronic resource for us as future technology teachers and I think this would be very welcomed by all as a tool to connect, share and promote new ideas. The premise is to have a Internet location with multiple links to relevant web-sites. The problem from what I can see upon researching this is that their are very few usable, relevant sites for what we are trying to do. I think that if this is to be a practical, current and useful resource it will take a massive amount of time and even more effort to compile, evaluate, post and maintain such a site. By no means am I saying that this is not a great idea, just that it will take a tremendous amount of time and energy by talented professionals within the field of Technology Education and perhaps even web-design to bring this resource to the status of where it should be. I am very surprised there is not an easy, user-friendly site out there..of course there very well may be and we will not be privy to such insider information until we have paid our dues…but I doubt it. The BCTEA/view magazine is an amazing resource and from what I have seen, has a wealth of info for Technology Teachers in British Columbia. That’s the rub, British Columbia, because there is a host of info from Finland, Germany and South Africa….but…..well, we live here and the BC Gov`t writes the curriculum so it may or may not be relevant. I think I would rather be on the same page with local colleagues in this respect regardless.
During the search for Tech teacher resources I have been rather disappointed with the amount of easy access, local and quality information and resources available through the Internet. I did put quite a bit of effort into locating anything, short of paying someone in South Dakota, of any real substance. Why is this? I contacted several Tech Ed teachers along with prior instructors from mt BCIT years and pretty much got the same response from all, the resources are all over the province, in every district and in every school….the resources are the teachers themselves.
With approx. 1000 Tech Teachers and an infinite number of students, lessons, projects and classes……that is a massive amount of resource to tap into. I had heard the term ‘networking’ on pretty much my very first day at BCIT and passed it off as something I could do later but as time went on I did keep hearing about how we should be establishing contacts and ties through affiliations, organizations, local teachers, school visits and conferences. Of course I do now see the benefit of knowing established teachers and administrators within the Technology Education system and the support that comes with it. I quite sure that every other new teacher in any disciple has similar feelings of under-preparedness and aprehensions about teaching for the first time but I think with my practicum training at UBCO, my technical training from BCIT, my sponsor teacher for guidance and the ‘networking’ support of my peers and colleagues:
Things will work out just fine
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