A Collection of Random Thoughts

I went on " Stories Teachers Share " which is a podcast website that focuses on the stories teachers have to share. The story I looked at was of Alexa Schlechter . She shared how she often feels stressed by her job because her students expect a lot of her, and she's scared to let them down. This story takes place in her Creative Writing class; this class has a mixed crowd meaning some students are there because they want to learn creative writing and others are there because they want to get the English credit over with so they can graduate. At the end of the semester, Alexa asks her students to write a memoir so they can be remembered as someone glorious! It is then she tells us about the student who always gets her work done, and never causes any trouble. This student comes forward with a story of how she has been cutting herself for six years hoping someone will notice, but no one did. After this, she felt invisible and attempted suicide two times. Alexa asked the stud...

Dear Mrs. Joshi, My name is Mudita Yajnik, you had me as your student in fourth grade. I am writing to you today to say thank you for being such a great teacher, and for helping deal with bullies. You were the first teacher  ever  who made me feel welcome in their class, and I could tell that you really did care about me. While I was in your class, I was dealing with a lot of bullies and the teachers ignored my cries for help. You, however, did not ignore me and let me vent when I wanted and provided a creative outlet for me to express myself. Even though it was an English language class, you had us drawing and playing games and spending time outside in the sun, and that made your class really fun and memorable. I remember we used to sing a song you made up for us. We used to sing it together as a class, and I used to sing that song at home as well! You even offered to tutor me so I can earn better grades in my classes. While I was in your class, I felt comf...

The dreaded finals week is upon us! You know what this means: staying up late to catch up on work and trying not to fall asleep in your early classes. Keeping up with all the deadlines coming up, while trying to keep a positive attitude so that you can fool yourself into believing that you can get through this. It sucks. But here's what I found. The more you stress yourself out by not relaxing or not sleeping, the worse your results will be. If you don't relax, you won't be putting your best foot forward. And I look for pretty much any excuse to relax, so here's what I do when I get stressed: 1. Eat! Eating distracts me somehow because all of a sudden this food is the most important thing in the world. I start to realize how hungry I've been this whole time and give myself a break as I find something to eat around the house. 2. Sleep. The most important thing to remember is that your brain will not function if it doesn't get rest. You won't be wasting ti...

A few posts ago, I described my dream school in which students are not judged harshly on their grades but their effort. A letter won't define their grade, the amount of work they put into it will. The school would be project based and would rely on outside resources so that students can understand from a young age how to look for good resources on their own. Essentially, I want my students thinking critically so that they don't believe everything they see. I want them to search for facts before believing something. I also want my school to be a self-improving school so the teachers would try to get their students to ask themselves why they believe what they believe. The perfect example of this is looking through advertisements, and looking at your own bias. Do you prefer one product to the other even though those products are the same? How is the viewer supposed to be influenced by the advertisement? Another way to self-improve is to read "controversial" texts in whic...

For my Advocacy Badge, I am advocating for teachers not  having guns in the classroom because I believe this will make students afraid of the teachers and this will lead to students having little to no trust in their teachers. This can't be good for the teaching environment because a student can not learn when they are scared. I say this from experience. My example is not as intense as a gun in the classroom, but I know what it's like to be afraid of a teacher. Before my family and I moved to America, I used to go to public school in India. Indian schools are a lot more different than American schools; mostly because teachers are allowed to bully students if they don't show results the teacher wants to see. For example; if a student (me) didn't complete their homework, the teacher is allowed to humiliate the student (me) in front of the class. If you complain about this to the principle, you will be seen as the troublemaker, not the victim. I think my teachers thought...

I know a lot of cheesy inspirational quotes say "hold the door open for opportunities" as a metaphor for having new experiences and opportunities to work with, but what about metaphoric flies? No one ever thinks about that. What about a really bad opportunity? I'm in a good mood today, as you can tell, so I wanna talk about the bad results I have seen by trying things I knew I wouldn't be good at but was pushed to do them by my parents, peers, or friends. #1: Riding a rollercoaster after eating. Can you guess how that story ended? (You probably can.) So, my friends and I drove up to Denver to go to Elidge Gardens. I was a bit hungry so I had some food, and immediately my friends wanted to go on the rollercoaster. I tried to say no, that I'll just watch and wait for them to get back, but they pushed me to ride with them and I threw up as soon as I got off the ride. #2: AP. American Literature. I wasn't always interested in Literature, and my A.P. American...

I've had a couple classes that were super boring. And having that thought in the back of my mind, I was not expecting a fun class when I walked into Accounting 1 in high school. The teacher had a reputation for choosing favorite and being extremely boring, but my dad wanted me to try out the class, so I didn't have a choice. I walked in and chose a seat in the back of the class. But when the teacher walked in, we noticed that it wasn't Mr. VanDalen! It was Mr. Gould! His substitute for the semester! The first day of class he handed out the syllabus and told us he will most likely not follow the due dates and let us take our time with whatever we need because he knew everyone worked at their own pace. He also made us laugh, which was a welcome surprise in Accounting 1. After that, I always looked forward to that class, even though I had absolutely no interest in it. Why? Because my teacher made it fun. He would assign us work for the class but no one complained because...

So there's this Hindi movie called 3 Idiots, in which the main character says that when life gets too hard your heart starts beating really fast which makes you scared of the task ahead. But your heart is really stupid and will react to everything around you. His advice was to put your hand over your heart and say "all is well" until you start to feel calmer. This will give you strength to take on the task ahead. I followed the advice the other day. I was working on my badge and an essay for another class, and then I remembered I needed to read an article for another class and read a book for another class and I couldn't help but panic. I started thinking there was no way I could do all this in such little time, there was no way I could finish any  of the tasks in time! But then I remembered the advice. So I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, put my hand over my heart and said: "all is well." I did this for about a minute and each time I told myself ...

The semester is coming to a close, and the tensions are high! I have several essays due in finals week so I am starting on those, I am doing well with my badge, but still feel like it could use more work, and my weekends are spent at work so my window for doing school work got a lot smaller. But other than that it's going great. I mean it. You know why? Because ever since my family and I moved to Fort Collins (in 2012) I have wanted to attend CSU. And now that I'm finally here I really love it! And yes, it's hard but I expected that. So whenever things get too overwhelming, I try to remember why I'm here in the first place. This helps me calm down and focus on the task at hand. My intentions for this semester is to walk away having learned something that will help me in my career. That's what I'm here to do, and that's what I hope to accomplish by the end of this semester. I have learned a lot from my EDUC 340 class because I get the opportunity to observe...

I was looking through websites and blogs that advocate for educational reform and change, and providing better resources and improving school systems that favor students rather than school charters. The National Education Association  looks into the school systems around the country and examines how many states offer education choice options. In these education options, they look into "Education Savings Account", "Voucher", "Tax-Credit Scholarship", and "Individual Tax Credit/Deduction". Each type of school ranges in eligibility and average funding as well as participation rate. The website talks about how to take action to have better-funded schools and how students can benefit from education rather than be stressed from it. I really love this idea because at the moment it looks like schools are not benefiting students as well as they should be. Most schools are very under-funded while schools across town are highly funded. The perfect example...

I took the Leadership Compass Self Assessment test, and it turns out I'm a visionary! (East side) This means that I am a creative thinker, can step outside the box, focus on future thought, look for overreaching themes and ideas, looks at the big picture, and appreciate a lot of information. Which all sounds great until I scrolled down to the bottom and saw that I most likely also am too easily frustrated when the outcome of a project is not what I imagined, tend to be highly enthusiastic early on but burn out over the long haul, am not time-bound, lose track of time, don't pay attention to details and have poor follow up on projects. I wish I could fight back and say this is completely wrong but then I'd be lying. I tend to get really excited about projects when I start them, especially if I thought of the project myself like my last UGP where I interviewed people, but I get frustrated by the end because it's not turning out the way I thought it would. I was really ...

I'm really bad at writing poems, especially if they are supposed to convey a deeper meaning. What I want to bring across is how I want to be a positive role model in kid's lives and get them excited to come to class. I want to make my class fun, and have really fun discussions about texts as well as learn how to write your own texts! (Essays, poems, short stories, etc.) I remember sitting in class, dreading every minute of it. Why am I supposed to be interested in a subject that bores me to tears? "You'll use this in real life" my math teachers always said. I think they forgot that calculators exist. But with literature class, I always looked forward to it. I liked discussing opinions and having fun, Our teacher knew how to make the class enjoyable. Our class environment was really friendly and supportive, Which is something I hope to bring in my future classroom. Like I said, my poetry skills are not the best. This is the best I could come up with in ...

Every job shares one simple requirement for you to fill if you want to be successful in your chosen career. You have to really love what you do. May that be because you're passionate about your chosen line of work, or you are trying to help as many people as possible. When you love what you do, work doesn't feel like work. And when you're having fun at work, you are in a more positive mood to improve your skills in your area. The same rule follows in the teaching career. It's easy to tell who wants to be a teacher and who doesn't by how they act. Passionate teachers are always promoting their content area to be used outside the classroom instead of on a test, they are always ready to learn something new, and care about their students. The only teachers I've had that promoted their content area outside of class are Mr. Knierim and Ms. Otteman from Rocky Mountain High School. Mr. Knierim teaches government and history and encourages his students to be informed v...

I have never been good at poetry. Never. I can appreciate poetry because it's something deep and layered and has hidden meanings in it, but I can never write it. I guess I gave up trying after a few times. But then I went to Get Lit and I have to say, it was really great! To see so many poets sharing their poetry and in a way sharing a part of themselves was so inspiring to see! I got to see my friends share their poetry, I got to see the people listening to the poetry respond to it in a way that was inclusive and accepting. The whole environment of Get Lit was so great, I want to experience that again. That being said, I think poetry exists to let readers see a tiny part of a story. May that story be a person or an event. Poems have layers in them in which you get to make up your own rules. I love Emily Dickenson's poetry because of that--she doesn't conform to any rules, she makes her own rules! This shows the rebellious side of Dickenson that I have fallen in love with...