Pytash: Final Reflection

Overall, this class was a real eye-opener. I learned a lot about taking the boring "classic" texts and making them more interesting. Last semester, I was really excited about teaching high school students literature because I was thinking that I could just teach them young adult literature and open their eyes to reading and make readers out of all of them. When this semester started, I remembered that almost all high schools require the reading of classic texts. I also remembered that I hate classic texts. I've never been a fan of them, and I find them really hard to get engaged in.

This class showed me how I can make these books more than just reading and taking tests or writing papers on them. One of my favorite things that I learned from this class is how to effectively lead a class discussion. Dr. Pytash said a lot how we can't just write in our lesson plans, "have a discussion" but instead we need to really focus on how we're going to form that discussion, how we'll keep it going it there are slow parts, and ways to keep the students on topic.

Then there was the Firestone experience. A lot of people loved this, but I didn't. To be completely honest, when we were asked what we learned from the experience I couldn't think of anything other than, "I learned that I don't want to teach high schoolers." While high school teachers have a lot of opportunities to get creative, I think my place is in an elementary school. I will be taking all of the lessons I learned from this class and apply it to my elementary teaching career in some way, but I'm glad I finally found what I'm passionate about.