Hi, I'm Kelsie, future history and math teacher...

Hello!  My name is Kelsie, and I'm an aspiring math and history teacher.  Now, if you are like the majority of individuals I've shared this with, there is now a confused look on your face.  History and math?  Yes, that's me, a lover of all things history and math.  There's actually more in common between the two than one might realize.

I have always loved learning and exploring the world around me.  I love to hike, camp, and go on vacations with my family.  I love exploring, and don't mind getting lost because I get to take roads I haven't driven before and see more of this amazing world!  I love handling old documents, and for several years I've collected old books and newspapers that chronicle important moments in history, and I'm excited to one day share what I have with my students. I've always loved history, because it contains all other subjects, and can be the connecting link for students and the other classes they take or extracurricular interests they have.  I hope to give students an opportunity to get excited about history and see how applicable it is to us today.  In my mind, history should be a very hands-on topic, and one that targets higher levels of thinking and analysis. We have so many resources at our fingertips today, a true study of history goes far beyond a textbook. I hope to have the opportunity to teach U.S. History or Government classes.  I particularly enjoy the Civil Rights era and making connections from early U.S. History to more modern historical events as well as current events.

I also have a great love for mathematics, and I didn't discover that love until college, but it is just as strong as my passion for history, so I feel very torn between the two and what I really want to end up teaching.  I enjoy teaching all types of math and honestly have no preference what I teach in that content area.  I love math because of the creative process, and it is a great way for students to evaluate the way in which they perceive the world around them.  There is so much more to math than just algorithms and spitting out the correct answer, and the creative pursuit that is pure mathematics is often absent in today's classrooms.  Real math is about the process, not the answer.  There is so much overlap into many other subjects and mathematics, and I want to help students connect math to their own interests and passions.

A love for both math and history drew me to teaching, but there was so many more factors involved in my decision to be an educator.  A teacher once told me that in order to be an effective teacher you need to care about three things: your subject, your students, and teaching.  Without one of those three elements it will be difficult to love your profession and be good at it.  I realized early on that I love to teach, I love the creative process of trying to get the most out of your students and convey information effectively and with excitement.  I love my content area, and I love working with adolescents and I care that they have a positive experience in school, one that will prepare them for things to come.  Honestly, I can't imagine myself anywhere but in a classroom.

In both of my content areas, it is critical that students have a deep understanding of the documents they encounter, deep enough to make inferences and/or deductions from the information at hand.  This is what I feel defines literacy.  Being truly literate in an area of study goes beyond knowing the jargon(although that is part of it) and involves thinking about what is being read, connecting it with their current knowledge, asking questions, and coming to conclusions about what they read.  Literacy is also being able to communicate effectively your own thoughts in an insightful and lucid way.  To understand historical events requires a great deal of literacy when sifting through documents and making connections between different points of view.  Literacy in mathematics is also crucial, especially when examining the logical steps of a proof.  The more I can focus on promoting literacy in my content areas, the richer an experience my students will have.