This is the first reflextion:

Erik Crawford
Dr. Olive
 

     After reading the article and the book, I reflected on why I wanted to be a teacher.  The book said students are influenced greatly by their teachers which I agree with whole heartedly.  As I told Dr. Wiegel in our papers due in her class, I experienced a horrible math teacher and a wonderful math teacher, these two very different people influenced my decision to become a math teacher.  I have no doubt that either teacher was brilliant in the mathematical field, however the teacher that did not attend MIT was the better communicator to the students.  Therefore students walked away from his class learning something and appreciating him as a teacher.  After talking with my classmates we came to the same conclusion about the teacher who did attend MIT, and those comments can not be displayed in this paper (for lack of taste).
     I knew going into the teaching field is not going to be as easy as many of my peers say.  I have many family members and very good friends who have been teachers, who have told me there is more work behind the scenes than in the classroom.  This insight has allowed me to be better prepared and aware of the work ahead of me.  The article in the book mentioned many of the skills a teacher must possess such as recognizing a student falling behind - knowing how to make a connection with that student while still keeping everyone else on task.  Sometimes this skill can not be taught to teachers it must be their willingness to connect with the students and have them come away having learned something.  Many people can become teachers, but not everyone can be a good teacher.  I hope that I will become a great teacher.  I know that I am not just a teacher I am someone they will look up to, someone they see as more experienced in life than they are, and I will not lose sight of that.  I know my actions will be reflected in their lives.
     The article about technology hits close to me because I started using graphing calculators in High School, and I have had good and bad experiences using them.  My first bad experience was in my calculus class.  My teacher depended soley on the graphing calculators.  He would teach us the theory for a few minutes and then jump straight to the calculators and show us how to skip all the ìmind numbing processesî.  Then when I took calculus in college we were not allowed to use calculators.  Using the calculators in High School actually put me at a disadvantage in my college level class.  I did not know the theories nearly as well as my peers.  I had become calculator dependent.
     I see calculators as something that needs to be used in moderation.  They should be used to perform functions such as graphing multiple equations that would take a student hours to do by hand.  They should not take the place of a students brain.  I now use my calculator as my first check of a problem, even a problem as simple as -1 plus -2.  Donít get me wrong, calculators should be used in some courses, like the article said you can ëcover more topicsí when using the calculator.  Topics that would normally take all day to learn can now take only a few moments.  This is a valuable commodity in the ever-growing field of mathematics.