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Recently I started on the path towards getting my teaching certification in the state of Texas after working in the retail business for three years. Along the way I have had the opportunity to observe multiple classrooms and see how a teacher works in the classroom environment.
Naturally I had curious students wander up to me and ask questions about who I was and what I was doing in their classroom. Talking with the students gave me a good opportunity to see what they thought made the difference between a good teacher and a great teacher. Through my questions one that I always brought up was what would you like to be taught that you aren't learning at school. To my surprise I got many different answers, but most students all said the same answers.
Today I am going to give you the top five answers that I got and why I believe these subjects should be taught to students. I want to say quickly that this list is in no particular order and there is no more importance in one subject over the other.
Critical Thinking
The first answer that I would like to talk about is critical thinking. Dictionary.com defines critical thinking as "disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence." Through my observation hours in the classroom one thing that I began to pick up on was that most teachers would stand and the from of their classroom and present the lesson the had planned for the class. Students would listen to the material and take notes, but would rarely as questions about what was being presented. The main cause of this was that the teacher wasn't engaging the students by asking high-level questions that made the students think about the topic that was being presented. The teachers that understood that critical think was important and used it were veteran teacher with many years of teaching experience and each one told me that it was important to make the students feel like they were part of the lessons being presented in class.
Personal Finance
Personal Finance was one of the answers that I got the most from students. Most of the students that brought up this topic were in high school. The one grade level that gave this answer the most was senior level students. When I asked why personal finance was something they wanted to learn about most reasons were that students didn't know how to make a budget, do taxes, or save money. I could understand from experience why this was important because these were thing that I was asking about when I was in my last year of high school and about to go out into the real world.
Ethics
The fourth answer that I got was why are some decisions right and some wrong. I say that as the answer because I rarely got the term ethics. Ethics is defined as "the branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions." Students knew was right and what was wrong, but they didn't always know why. This was a particular subject that I wasn't taught until college and I would have like to learn at a younger age.
First Aid
This is the first of the five topic that wasn't given to me by students, but that I would like to see taught at some point in a school setting. First aid is something that should be taught because with everything that can potentially cut, scrape, bruise and burn us on a daily basis it important that we understand the stages of injuries and how to start the healing process so that our body can be kept in good physical condition at all times.
Basic Law
The last topic is basic law. Now this one wasn't so much brought up my students, but something that I thought would be a good topic to learn. During my time in high school I took courses in government and in criminal justice. While these courses were a good start, they didn't go deep into what rights we have and how to make sure that those right aren't infringed upon. One area that would be helpful to have a class on is state laws as I always talk with people that didn't know something was illegal in Texas.