A different perspective

I have been learning a lot through the Monday night lectures, hearing the viewpoints of people involved in education in different ways, but I particularly enjoyed this past week's panel of parents. I liked how they said the most important to you (as a parent) is to make sure you kid is getting the best and doing the best that they can. Yes, the past panels of school board members, administrators and new teachers have obviously cared about the children, otherwise why would they have chosen Education, but to see the parent's passion and their "It's all about my individual child being accommodated for and doing their very best" mentality was really powerful. It's interesting to think that there will (hopefully) be a parent (or parents) this passionate about their child's learning for every student in your class. I think this is a challenge to accommodate for each of the different students. Thus accomplishing this is a step towards becoming an expert teacher.

The parents were the first group to not support NCLB and that was refreshing to hear. With myself (and some of my fellow Luther Education students), not having the most positive views of NCLB, I was was starting to wonder if we were completely off in having these feelings because the other panels all seemed to support it pretty strongly. I especially liked hearing from the two mothers who used to be teachers and whose children have been going through the system for awhile. As I hope to be a parent someday too, I have been thinking about how I will have view education from both sides, teacher and parent. I think it is so very important for children to have this support system in thier lives. Hopefully the parent can provide this, but if they are not then the teacher must step in and provide that supportive environment.