4 years ago I started college. Well ... 3 1/2 years ago I should say. I remember hearing professors talk about what they did and I remember hearing students talk about their interests and all I thought was, "wow, some day I'll be that dedicated to history." I was saying this because my professors were talking about how they went to this country and that country to do research and how they were working on this book or that book. It sounded like all they ever did was work on history. To be honest: many of them do. Then there are the students that are obsessed with history. They have 5 papers due one week and 5 the next and they thrive on this vast amount of history knowledge they are obtaining. Not me ... I like history. I want to teach history. That is my big push to become a history teacher. I'm not obsessed with history. I don't want to work on history every waking hour. I dread going for a doctorate and having to write a 125 page paper on something trivial and specific. Where would I ever find enough information for that? I don't think I'll ever be that dedicated to history and probably moreso dedicated to teaching. My question is: should I be obsessed with history? Is it possible to be a good history teacher without knowing every part of history inside and out? My thought to this is that teaching will be a learning experience in itself. I will find those students who are very interested in learning more and they will ask me questions that I won't know the answers to. I'll look them up or have them look it up for extra credit and turn in something to increase my knowledge of a topic. That's what I expect to do in the classroom. It seems that my professors are all-knowing in their field. Any question thrown at them has an answer that is well-educated and it seems as though they were expecting someone to ask the question. That brings me to another point. Any question I would ask in class is no where near as amazing as the other questions people ask. They will ask about stuff that I don't even understand or ask about something totally unrelated except for one little link and I just stare at the teacher as he replies as if the question was logical. In that regard I don't know what's going on there. Maybe I'm not as into history as others but I have an urge to teach it to students and I think/hope that will be all I know to succeed (along with an interest to learn more as it is presented to me).
Amazon.com has proven to me that it is not necessary to pay for the "rush" shipping or whatever it's called through delivery. I ordered something from Amazon.com and it shipped out yesterday (the DVD was released yesterday). It arrived today. I ordered the "free super saver shipping" that you get with orders $25 or more and it should take 5-10 business days to arrive. It arrived the day after they shipped it. The only thing I can think of is I ordered it in September so they have it ready to ship the day it was released. The site says it was shipped yesterday so unless that is wrong -- I'm just in shock. I'm glad I don't pay for that extra shipping because this only proves that it is all a scam.
Michelle asked Gretchen to call me and invite me to Applebees today. That was very thoughtful of her but unfortunately while they have half days, I do not. It was a nice thought just the same and I called them back to ask how the food was and whatnot. I wish I could have gone ... much more entertaining than class (of course, so is chewing on glass). In any case, thanks to the two of them for thinking of me while I suffered through the labors of college.
I got some more research done for my Russian history paper. I have 3 sources down now ... out of 7. I still have to find more sources but I thought of another search to perform to get a more well-rounded paper. I'm hoping to do well on the paper and with a little work to maybe etch out a B in the class. That would be really nice. I feel I did well on the test yesterday. Better than the first one at least. As I stated last post, I did screw something up in it but I think it's minor in the grand scheme of things. I studied a bit more for this test and I think if I had studied a bit more I would have avoided the confusion and gotten a more solid grade in my mind (I may very well get a C on the paper because my second essay could have used some more details and I don't know how he feels about my IDs). We'll see I suppose.
My Europe of the World Wars professor has now pushed our paper back AGAIN until Monday ... the Monday after Thanksgiving. I was just blinking at him as he said this because I now again have no motivation to write the paper. He sucks. I appreciate the extra time but now I have to find something else to focus on so I can get the paper done. It's just time to put it to bed so I don't have to worry about it. That's all I have to say about that.
I think I'm done blogging for now. Do have a good evening though.
6 comments:
Well Chuck I want to make a meaningful comment in response to your post- and I will. But two things prevent it tonight.
First, the regular internet conncetion for the town has gone down. Hopefully this will just be a short outage, but sometimes it goes on for days. So, here I am at a little after one in the morning at the Forest Service office, where a different system conncets to the net.
I felt the need to keep up with some of my correspondence, even if it meant driving the mile or so on my wheeler through several inches of mashed potatoe-like slush. In, I might add degraded health. Which brings me to my second issue.
Oddly, a day after commenting to you about your recent illness, I now have a fever, sore throat, head and chest congestion. Is it possible to catch a non-computer virus electronically? You may have found a way to make it happen.
Ugh!
But, I'm not bitter.
;-)
about being obsessed with history--
i think it depends a lot on where you want to teach. at a college level, being "obsessed" helps; you have to do constant research to stay on tenure...at a secondary school level i feel its split more evenly between education and loving history. i am one of those people that are obsessed with history. i love the history channel, i love reading about history...i got a 5 on the AP us history test (i'm still proud of that!)...but i could never teach history to anyone at a secondary level. if i did teach history, i probably would want to do it at a collegiate level. i might eventually teach music at a collegiate level. there's just a different feeling teaching high schoolers versus college....its hard to describe, but i notice it when i compare teachers i have now to teachers i had in high school. except for mr smith. when i think of mr smith, i think of someone that could have taught at collegiate level. he had that sort of "don't whine, i'm not going to hold you hand for you...suck it up and SING" attitude that is prevalent in university teaching.
i think i like that more than high school teaching attitudes. then again, that's just my opinion.
see ya xmas break! we should get the crew together and hang out--it'll probably be one of the last times we'll be able to :(
<3 maggie
Hey Chuck - interesting read as always - just stopping by to let you know I'm still alive, kicking and trying to blog as often as I can .. hope all is well with ya sweetie!
Well ,now that I'm on the mend. . .
OK. As an interested observer, I'd like to ask if you have found out what you are passionate about yet? Not everyoine does in their youth, so maybe you haven't found it yet.
It is my opinion that every man of worth should have ideal or work that he loves and will sacrifice for, as well as at least one thing that keeps him righteouly angry on some level every day.
This is an outlook that is not in vougue these days. From your righting I believe that you might just have it in you to be a force to be reckoned with as time goes by. Let's see.
Well ,now that I'm on the mend. . .
OK. As an interested observer, I'd like to ask if you have found out what you are passionate about yet? Not everyoine does in their youth, so maybe you haven't found it yet.
It is my opinion that every man of worth should have ideal or work that he loves and will sacrifice for, as well as at least one thing that keeps him righteouly angry on some level every day.
This is an outlook that is not in vougue these days. From your righting I believe that you might just have it in you to be a force to be reckoned with as time goes by. Let's see.
Well ,now that I'm on the mend. . .
OK. As an interested observer, I'd like to ask if you have found out what you are passionate about yet? Not everyoine does in their youth, so maybe you haven't found it yet.
It is my opinion that every man of worth should have ideal or work that he loves and will sacrifice for, as well as at least one thing that keeps him righteouly angry on some level every day.
This is an outlook that is not in vougue these days. From your righting I believe that you might just have it in you to be a force to be reckoned with as time goes by. Let's see.
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