I am a male who has rather severe ADHD and depression, and a touch of high-functioning autism. However I care about kids and have a passion for knowledge. I earned 8 free semesters of college after earning a 32 on my ACT, and though I've been working as a pharmacy technician for 2 years now, I've struggled to rise to the level of my peers and often just get whatever hours are left over. I'm using my scholarship to pursue secondary social studies since I was something of a nerd in school and I miss the sense of being in a school community. I am an agnostic atheist secular humanist as well, so I feel that I must give back to the greater community in some way to feel fulfilled. My greatest struggle in teaching will definately be classroom management, as I am a sensitive guy who feels uncomfortable treading on the rights and feelings of others and who cares a great deal for open and authentic discussion. Alas, I have seen from my observations that the most lenient teachers have the most unruly classes, so I must strike a balance between care and structure. I no longer put much stock in MBTI or personality systems beyond simple face value, but I am INFP. This post is devolving into stream of consciousness, I admit, but I'll admit that during my last observation of the last semester I attended, I was placed within a group of middle school students rather than to the side and I had two students at the group I was seated at begin to bicker back and forth, one student calling the other "gay" and the other student responding to the first student, "you're gay." Finally, the first student turned to me and asked "Do you think he's gay?"
I didn't want to shut the question down because I believe that it is always better to provide an answer or at least something to think about rather than to simply silence a student. I also knew that homosexuals are an oppressed group in our society and merely silencing the first student would imply there was something wrong with being gay, which would hurt the second student if he were indeed gay. On the other hand, if I said yes or anything which might imply the second student was gay, this would offend the student if he was not gay and would have serious repurcussions for me down the line. I decided I would take a neutral, balanced approach in my response and said "We are all special in our own way, which is what make the world a special and exciting place. It doesn't matter whether he is gay or not." Rather than ending the conversation, as was my intent, it escalated the situation. I discussed this with my mother later that day, who taught 15 years of high school, and she said that a simple "We aren't going to talk like that" would have been better. Her suggestion seems cold, but I want to respond to situations like this correctly in the future. At any rate, I am my recently deceased grandmother was glad I was pursuing education, as she was also in education, so I suppose it is something of a family tradition. I look forward to reading wisdom from these webpages, as I'm sure it will allow me to grow as an educator. As I wrote in my philosophy of education, I strongly favor the social reconstructionist and progressivist traditions, and if I can get even one more person to question the status quo, I have dealt the powers that be a blow.
