Section 6: Getting an IDT Position and Succeeding at It

I began teaching six years ago.  I have only taught kindergarten and that is what I am currently doing.  I absolutely love this age for children! It seems that this is a great time of learning for them and it is very rewarding to be a part of that.  I often tell people that I have the most important job in the world because each year I get 22 little people who barely know the alphabet and when the year is over, they are able to read and write! That may not really be the most important job in the world but it feels very important to me and I am proud of what I do.  I am working on getting my masters in curriculum and instruction. I really have no plans to go anywhere or do anything different for a long time (if ever)! My main reasoning behind going to graduate school was that I felt like many of the things I learned in college were useless because I didn’t have a way to apply them when I was learning them.  I wanted to be a better teacher and now I feel like I am learning so much and it is all relevant to me! If I decide that I do not want to be a regular classroom teacher, I think the only thing that would be left for me to do is be a reading specialist.  I cannot imagine a time when I wouldn’t want to work closely with children. 

I want to continue teaching young children, this will take place in an elementary school such as the one in which I am working.  When completing the WorkMatrix™ I was not at all surprised to see that the most desired type of work for me fell under the first-level service.  Part of me is interested in developing instruction but only as far as curriculum writing goes.  Geographic location is a huge deciding factor for me when considering the features of work.  Right now I can walk to work in about 5 minutes and it is wonderful! I can’t imagine having to commute after being so close!  The section in our textbook about psychological and economic income was interesting to me.  While I may wish that being a kindergarten teacher was a high income job, it is not and I am perfectly happy to stay where I am and that is where the psychological income comes into play.  Simply because I plan on staying where I am, teaching kindergarten, for a very long time doesn’t mean that I do not have things to learn.  I have already obtained a teaching certificate but in order to keep it renewed I have to participate in several continuing education classes each year.  I have already noticed that some of the things that I learned as an undergrad have changed and evolved of the last few years.  I must make it a priority to keep learning and stay up to date on new developments in the educational world.  I will be a student for the rest of my life!

 

There were so many professional organizations to choose from! Many of them would not benefit me but I did find a few that I thought would be helpful as far as keeping me updated in my field.  The first one that I chose was the International Society for Technology in Education.  Their website states “The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) is the premier membership association for educators and education leaders engaged in improving learning and teaching by advancing the effective use of technology in PK–12 and teacher education.” One of the things that sold me on this organization is the fact that they acknowledge and include the younger grades, so many times when discussion technology in education, the younger students are not included.  I believe that we do not give our youngsters enough credit sometimes when it comes to what they can do, especially involving technology.  They certainly aren’t strangers to it like I was as a child! ISTE is holding a conference in San Antonio this summer, which is close and reasonably priced and I think I would like to attend.  It promises hundreds of sessions and sounds like a great learning experience!

The next professional organization that I chose was International Technology Education Association.  Similar to the last organization that I mentioned, this organization also speaks to educators of young students.  When I visited their website the name was different but the description very much the same.  The new name for the organization is International Technology and Engineering Educators Association.  They have developed a curriculum called Engineering byDesign™ to help promote technological literacy in education.  This program seems to begin early and continuously build skills as students gain more knowledge.  I looked at some of the sample activities and I was impressed at how cross curricular the program was! There was a quote on the website that I wholeheartedly agree with, "The Engineering byDesign™ Program is built on the belief that the ingenuity of children is untapped, unrealized potential that, when properly motivated, will lead to the next generation of technologists, innovators, designers, and engineers." This sounds like a great program from which I could learn much!