Final Post: Reflection of TE 448

I first came into this class thinking it would be somewhat like TE 348. To my surprise it was nothing like TE 348, but I absolutely think that this class was very beneficial. When I first went over the syllabus I was quite overwhelmed with all of the material it looked like we would be covering, and when I saw the number of papers we would be writing I questioned if the class was for me. I am very glad I decided to stick with it.

The QTT papers were probably the most challenging aspect for me throughout this class. With some books it was very easy for me to come up with questions but for others I really struggled. I would come up with a question, take time and think of examples, and then realize that this is not what I wanted to focus on, and would change topics and repeat the entire thing. This was very time consuming and frustrating; however at the end of each paper I found myself confident and surprised that I had managed to view the text in a way that I never would have seen it in before. The activity that helped me really understand the QTT papers was the final activity of the class. We looked at the questions from every novel and discussed similar themes and questions. When looking at the list of topics we came up with as a class I was pretty amazed that we had covered that much information in only one semester. Looking at those questions I knew that I would be able to guide my future students to analyze literature and review it in a critical way.

Another week that was very beneficial to me was the week that we discussed literature about disabilities. I am a child development major, and have no experience working with children with disabilities. I had always thought of issues of diversity including race, sexuality, gender and religion, but for some reason I did not focus on disabilities as being part of that group. After discussing this topic and watching the movie “Autism is a World” I realized how important it was to include this literature and information in a classroom. I know that it is not a requirement to take special education classes if that is not your major, however after learning about this topic I believe it should be mandatory of all education majors. Thanks to this course I have decided to take a special education class to better prepare myself to include this in my future classroom.

One question I have leaving this course is how I will include diverse topics into my classroom. I know how to accurately talk about them and how to choose literature to represent them, but we never discussed how to introduce them. I am not too worried about this however, and I’m sure once I am in the classroom and teaching I will find a way to incorporate it in. Overall, I have learned so much that will help me become a better educator. I can now critically read a text, choose literature that portrays diverse groups in an accurate way, and I have a better understanding of multicultural issues.