Math 371 Technology for STEM Educators

             As future educators we will run into all kinds of different students. There will be students that can be discouraging and hard to deal with as a teacher. I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of time substitute teaching so I’ve got to see some of this firsthand by subbing in the in-school suspension room. I saw students who were smart, personable, and had all the tools within themselves to succeed in school and do whatever they wanted to in life. But, despite that, they were failing all of their classes and it felt like there was nothing I could do to convince them to try. If you could get them to try for even part of a day, they did great on their tests or assignments despite not going to class often.              Watching students make decisions like this was hard for me, even as somebody who was just a substitute. I spent a week working in the in...

Imagine a school in which the teachers and administrators expected nothing from you. You don’t want to graduate? Okay, that’s fine. You don’t want to show up to class? Okay, that’s fine too. Now, some students may think “oh man, this is the best school ever.” But what if school is the only place you can go in order to get a meal to eat? What if school is the only safe place for you to be at? What if school is the only place where you feel important and cared for? Would you still want this? Cruz showed up on Coach Carter’s doorstep one night after his cousin was shot on the street. It was the only place he felt he could go in order to get out of this lifestyle and be safe. Cruz is a character in the movie  Coach Carter  who lives in a life of poverty, drugs, and gangs. In one of the scenes towards the end of the movie Cruz said to Coach Carter, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not ou...