Explain Everything/Shadow Puppet Reflections

One of the quintessential aspects of being a quality educator is the ability to digest complex information within one’s content area, and be able to illustrate the central themes in a way that makes sense to all students.

I am taking two ED classes currently (Literacy & Curriculum), and within these two classes, we have recently worked on creating a visual tool to display our content areas, as well as our preferred content theories in a way that demonstrates our comprehension of the material. For my literacy class, we were assigned the task of making a Shadow Puppet presentation with a partner, to demonstrate collaborative efforts, as well as presenting our content areas in an engaging manner. Additionally, for my curriculum course, we were designated the responsibility of designing an Explain Everything presentation that shows our ability to both navigate through multiple apps so we can utilize programs effectively with our future students, and to display our understanding of what content theory we best align with.

Within my study of political science, ideologies and texts is continuously expanding since it is very much a study of the human condition. When Katelyn Crandall and I worked on our Shadow Puppet Project, we both collaborated and discussed what might be our central themes within our respective disciplines (Katelyn is a math major). We both were working together to firstly figure out what essentials can we pick out from our other majors to ensure that we convey the key elements to both math and political science. We both had a conversation, and drafted an outline of a script to ensure that we could attempt to condense the breadth of our studies into a five minute presentation. When we both finished our script, we provided evidence for P.C. 5.2  to show our collaboration efforts and that link is provided HERE:

Through this collaboration, we were also able to articulate the primary ideas within our respective fields of study, which connects P.C. 4.1. Being able to condense an augmenting field of study and showcase the provisions within a content area demonstrates a high level of comprehension in regards to working with the material. Within our Shadow Puppet, I discussed how civics and history are more than just text oriented documents, they are living breathing accounts of the world in which we currently live, and to better understand who we are as a society, and as the human race, it is pivotal that we understand the major events and socio-political movements that preceded us.

In addition to history being a study of the human condition, it is necessary to break the barriers between your students and your audience when dealing with the misconceptions of a particular study. In our shadow puppet, we both described common misconceptions of the way people view literacy within both math and political science which connects to P.C. 4.2.. For example, people may assume that history deals with primary and secondary documents. Though this statement is true, it is also misleading in the useage of the word, “documents.” Documents can be more than text oriented artifacts, the discipline of history and political science deals with all aspects of human life, whether this is artwork that demonstrates personal or societal struggle, or perhaps history is analyzing Star Wars, and viewing with a critical eye and connecting parallels between the fictional Sci-Fi Thriller, and World War II. There is tremendous brevity in regards to how an educator could demonstrate that history and political science is more than books, history is the culmination of our lives!

Furthermore, I utilized Explain Everything, an app that allows people to make tutorials of presentations to educate others. For example, my Explain Everything was about Humanism, which is an educational theory that promotes personal choice, and having an educator act as a facilitator in order to best engage the students which instills the desire to learn. Within this Explain Everything, I discussed what drives me to excel as a future educator. We have a substantial population of youth in the United States, yet the interactions between adults and students are so sparse, in terms of having a meaningful dialog about what future do we envision for ourselves, whether it is a vision of government, education, or how we treat others. When the current education system has largely (not in all cases) decided that education is a top down process in which no experience or learning can be received by educators, administration, or policymakers when students are talking, we completely shut off and hinder how successful our society will be. I vehemently oppose the notion of having a classroom be a top down process, when we have the ability to learn from each other and grow as citizens in our world. I don’t merely want to teach my students, I want to learn with my students and ensure that we are doing our part to create a better world and better community. I believe this aligns well with the Saint Michael’s Education Department and their mission statement including the section on having passionate educators.

Outside of school, I have been working closely with high school students in Vermont, and Washington D.C. to create student advisory councils, or an entity of students that can present information to the state boards of education. These two boards also have student members that preside, and by allowing the student representatives on the board to have a constituency, they can work together to implement and promote well-constructed educational initiatives that will better the lives of all stakeholders in education. When I work with these students, I do not simply tell them what they should do, nor am I trying to teach them a lesson. To the contrary, I believe that the only way one can truly learn is that one must genuinely believe they are the least important, and least knowledgeable person in the room. When I work with these students, I ask them what they want to do on a local, state, and national level and what their short term and long term goals are. From here, I do my best to suggest the best practices involved with making their goals an actuality. Through my political science, and secondary education program at Saint Mike’s, I have learned both theories and strategies that help me take my content area and apply it to meaningful issues on a local and national level, to ensure that all students can be heard, and I believe this connects with P.C. 5.1.

In the future, I do want to be an educator, but I feel that I would be better suited for working at an educational agency, or consortium, in which I could do field work to learn more about what is going on in all of the classrooms, and what experiences are missing in schools, in order to enhance the quality of learning within school systems. I want to continue to work with secondary students from across the country to build the largest stakeholder in education and to affirm their role and solidify their voice so other stakeholders will be able and willing to hear their voices.