Welcome to My World!

Hello Everyone!  You can read more about me in the About section on the right of the screen.  My hope is to use this blog as an outlet for my thoughts.  I have a lot of different things on my mind right now.  First, I want to raise the standards in my classroom - to make students globally competitive from a scientific standpoint.  In order to do this I feel that I need to implement more hands on and inquiry activities.  The only problem is that I'm not sure how to do that and still cover the necessary material that students are required to know based on the essential standards.  Second, I am experiencing difficulty with student effort and behavior in some of my classes.  I have always tried to treat students as equals as much as possible so that they feel responsible and mature.  For seven years, this belief has proven beneficial.  However, I am now experiencing students who don't really care that much about there grades.  They are doing poorly and have no intention of improving.  Instead they would rather socialize with their friends.  I think that the time has come for me to graduate from being an equal and become the adult in the situation.  This scares me a bit.  I never thought that I would become one of "those" teachers that is a stickler for every rule and expects nothing but excellence but it seems that is the only way to get things accomplished.  I feel bad for the students in my class who are mature enough to be my equal because they will miss out on my "true" personality but in order to do my job I have to put aside my feelings and put the student needs first.  Up to this point my job has always been the area in my life where I felt the most secure.  I truly felt that I was doing exactly what I should be doing, exactly where I should be doing it.  I was good at my job.  Lately, I haven't felt this way anymore.  I feel like I am a second rate teacher and I want this to change but I am also going to have to realize that this job isn't my life - it's a job.  We must play different roles when we have a job.  We can't simply be ourselves and do things how we want to do them.  We have to assume the position that the job requires and not carry our "feelings" around with us.  This blog will detail my journey to become more assertive and to bring my classroom into the 21st century in science instruction.