A Little About Why I'm Here...

I am excited to be a part of our blogging community, and I look forward to using blogs, wikis, and more resources to give even more opportunities to my students this next school year. I hope to learn how to use new tools, examine where technology in the classroom is heading, and to work with my colleagues to consider topics in a new way.

I teach 8th grade ELA at Ridgeview Middle School, and I also serve as the Department Chair for the ELA department. I have been teaching for about thirteen years, half of which were spent teaching high school pre-AP and AP English (9th/11th grade) and the other half have been spent learning wonderful things from 7th and 8th grade students. I love middle school! Though I enjoyed my high school students, I felt that many of their decision-making processes and world-perceptions were permanently fixed by the time they arrived in high school. I wanted to help them during the formative years of their personalities, so I dove into middle school philosophy and found a wonderful home with our "tweens".

I love to learn and look forward to a continuous journey of new experiences with my students and my colleagues this year!

~V

Comments

Unknown said…
I love what you said about middle schoolers...they're still so malleable when it comes to decision making and viewing the world. I also love that they're straddling these two worlds: childish egocentrism and global perpective. It's really neat helping to open their eyes to a much bigger world than they previously realized existed and to help them learn how to make good decisions for themselves and the world they live in.
July 9, 2008 at 3:03 PM
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