today

Monday is going to be my last day at the Children's Museum, and today I had to fill out my final self-evaluation of my internship. I reflected on my goals and evaluated the museum's internship program, and as it turns out, this has been a really awesome experience!! I achieved my goals by empowering the high school volunteers every week and leading the first-shift training, leading the tour that explains what the volunteers will be doing all week. I must have done something good because they had me outline my tour to be the official tour-giving document. Another goal of mine was to identify my strengths to determine if I want to get my teaching certification in elementary or secondary education...and as of today, I want to be a high school history teacher. But my hours spent facilitating art projects with young children was not wasted!! I needed that experience to understand that I really really don't want to teach elementary school. There were plenty of wonderful moments and interactions with children at the museum (see weather the whether) but most of the time spent with younger kids in a classroom setting tends to be redirection (we paint on the paper, use the sticks to build rather than poking each other's eyes, the cotton balls are not marshmallows...) and the rule at the museum is that we don't compliment the final project, it is about observing the process and encouraging learning not simply saying "good job" at the end. (I struggled with this, but it really does make sense for museum standards) But constant redirection and no affirmation is not the life for me. I would rather be teaching engaged students more abstract concepts and encouraging, affirming and empowering them along the way (see listening to the sweet sounds of facilitation) So hopefully this means it's all happening and I will be putting my passion into action this year in my American Studies honors project by planning and implementing a curriculum in a high school classroom...and I am officially in honors, the registrar proactively did something in my favor--WHAT? I know. miracle.