Teaching

I made it through the first week of school and it was very challenging/eye opening for me as a teacher.  Wow I never have been laughed at by so many students for pronouncing so many names wrong.  I tell you what I have seen so many different names that I have no clue how to say or pronounce so it is very hard for me to remember 230 students because I can't even say them muchless remember them.  Some students have both a Korean or Chinese name along with an American name so this makes it easier if they have this and easier for me to remember since it is so familier to hear. On another note the students are very structured and disciplined so it is easier to conduct and easier to get to know the students.  Students at this school are very smart and are very good at memorizing things that are put in front of them.  So my goals in health is to get students to think outside the normal written memory and factual knowledge.  If you ask the students a question from the book they will know it right away however, if you ask them why a person ought to do something  like why is it Christian to do that or why we should eat healthily students have trouble understanding what I am asking.  I feel that this will be my biggest challenge here is to get students to think past the basic concepts and factual knowledge and really putting them into use outside of the classroom.  I would like to get the students to really understand the importance of health and physical fitness because they seem to really focus on subject areas and really excel at learning in the math and science areas because they don't have to think outside the box they just know the right and wrong of numbers and other things put in front of them.  I think that this will help me as a teacher though because I will understand how to deal and teach students that learn differently and can only understand some of the things. All in all it was a good week for me and am looking forward to learning the differences in students and  the backgrounds where each student comes from.