Hello, my name is Caitlin Fitzsimmons! I am from Rochester, NY (about 4 hours from Cleveland). I would like to major in Early Childhood Education. And if all things go as planned, I would like to be a 1st or 2nd grade teacher. However, I am also thinking about being a special education teacher for younger children in elementary school.
One interesting fact about me is that I just recently became a vegetarian. A couple factors came into play to influence me to give up meat. One is I am a huge animal rights activist. The meat factories where almost all meat is from, is extremely inhumane and can be terrible for human health. Another reason is that I took an Environmental course my senior year in high school and it opened my eyes as to how bad meat production factories are for the environment.
Having that said, I chose a article on National Geographic (link below) about climate change and what that means for our future. I am really passionate about the environment because nature is such a beautiful thing and we as humans are destroying it at an exponential rate. We cannot live without the environment. Once the environment is too damaged to restore, it will be too late for us. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160523-climate-change-study-eight-degrees/
For me to be comfortable to take risks in a college classroom, I would have to know that my classmates and professor won't judge me and respect my point of view on certain subjects. I also want my classmates and my teacher to be understanding if I don't understand a specific topic or if I get an answer wrong. Just overall respect in the classroom from everyone is really important to me.
My favorite moment as a student was when I was a senior in high school in Sociology class. We were watching a movie on how the media portrays women. It was so impactful to me. It showed how girls today around 10 years old are starving themselves to be like the models they see in every social media. It was just very eye opening to me that girls as young as 10 did that to themselves.
My mom is currently an 8th grade math teacher, so I am very familiar with some problems in education. Just recently common core changed how and what teachers are teaching to their students. However, that would require teachers to change almost everything like their lesson plans and even the material they know. It's good for us young teachers because we are currently learning how to be teachers but it is very bad for the teachers who already have jobs. Another problem is that it's hard to find a job as a teacher. Personally, I know a lot of unemployed young teachers searching for even just a subbing opportunity. And one last problem I've heard about is that teachers don't get enough credit from society and they don't make a ton of money. I find it interesting that we are forming children's minds and teaching them skills they will use in life yet, teachers aren't really valued.
Question for classmates: where is everyone from and what kind of education is everyone studying?
Question for Dr. Shutkin: where are you from and what's your favorite part of teaching this class?
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