Blog Post #1

About Me

My name is Jessica Charlene Harris. I am 21 years old and I was born on April 5, 1991. Before I came to live in Mobile, I lived in a small town outside of Birmingham called Fultondale for about 15 years. Prior to living there I have lived in other small towns such as Gardendale and Cleveland, Alabama. I moved to Mobile for school and to experience another environment outside of Birmingham that would be still familiar but different at the same time. I came to the University of South Alabama to gain more independence from my parents and to gain more responsibility for my own life.

Prior to moving to Mobile and attending USA, I attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham or UAB. At UAB I changed my major at least five times. I started out as a health management major and I was also pre-optometry. Health management, I decided, was not for me and changed my major to biology. Biology, it turned out, was not my favorite subject. Due to this revelation I changed my major to exercise science. I love to work out so I thought this would be the perfect fit and changed from pre-optometry to pre-physical therapy. I was then introduced to the world of anatomy. In my opinion anatomy is the most gruesome subject ever and decided to make another major change out of the science and medical field completely. I changed my major to advertising when I transferred to South Alabama. However, I still didn't feel satisfied. I felt like I was missing something important in my life. I sat down one night and wrote down all that I am interested in and what I would be happy doing the rest of my life. I came to the conclusion that I love history and I love helping people which are two things that I am very good at. Therefore, I changed my major to Secondary education with a concentration in social science.

Even though I value my independence from my family, they are a huge part of my life. I have a moderate size family with two parents and two older brothers. My parents, Dean and Deborah Harris, have been married for thirty-three years. My dad is a quiet man and always seems to be in deep thought. In contrast, my mom is very opinionated and is very temperamental. However, my parents manage to get along and own their own restaurant in Tarrant City, Alabama which is an industrial city within Birmingham. The restaurant's name is Bama Hot Dogs. The name choice came from my family's love of Alabama football. My brothers, Jeremy and Johnathan Harris, are thirteen and ten years older than me. My mom calls me "the bonus" of our family. My brothers are a huge part of my life and are my personal cheerleaders. They love to live vicariously through me and make sure I am doing the right thing and that I do not make the same mistakes as they did.

Through the influences of my brothers, I have grown to love sports. My passion is volleyball and tennis. Volleyball teaches important lessons such as team work and responsibility. Tennis teaches you how to be independent and to take accountability for your actions. These sports and their lessons inspire me even more to become a teacher and a coach. I want to teach and help kids learn these important and valuable lessons.

Additionally, I believe in hard work and that hard work is what gives you the best results. I am not one to give up. I work hard on every task that I am given and to the best of my ability.

My Classroom

When I was in school I hated it when my teachers would talk on and on and not really involve the student body in the discussion. The best way for me to learn was to do it hands on and to actually be involved. That is how I plan to teach my future students. I believed that the best way to learn and to understand a topic is to be involved at the task at hand.

I plan on teaching history in grades 6th and above. I prefer high school students because they can comprehend more and be on a more intellectual level. Students in these grades will be more able to use the technology that I want to incorporate in my teaching. I want them to be able to use power point and to be able to present main topics in efficient ways by using pictures and videos.

I plan to be a hands on teacher. I want my students to be efficient learners and to be rational thinkers. I am going to achieve this goal by getting my students involved in class debates and letting them share there opinions in well thought out processes.

My classroom will be fair and all my students will have an equal opportunity to express their ideas. I will encourage my students to work in groups to teach them the value of team work but also encourage them to take the time to embrace their own curiosity by doing independent research. Therefore, teaching them to be independent and to be more self sufficient.

Randy Paush on Time Management

The video is very true, and I can relate because I have serious problems with time management. I learned that "failing to plan is planning to fail" which I can relate to during my first year of college. I would put things off thinking that I had enough time to do my homework. I would frequently forget what I had to do. With out planning and making a "to do" list I was lost and my grades reflected that.

An interesting topic that he brought up were goals and why are they on your goal list. My goals are to become the best educator that I can be and to be successful. I learned that the best way to succeed at your goals is to break them down into small parts. This is true. Breaking things into smaller steps helps you stay on track and lessens your stress. I live the frog analogy and it sends a good message. If you have a lot of parts to you "to do" list, do the biggest step first so that when you get to the end it won't be as stressful and more successful.

Time Management Exercises

Writing out a schedule for myself would be the most beneficial. It's the most beneficial for me because it doesn't allow me to procrastinate much. It allows me to schedule my social life around my academic life. Another factor is that I have a hard time with saying no to my friends. With this schedule it doesn't leave me much time to say yes to my friends. It allows me to put my priorities first and to be rid of time wasters. My friends will understand because they might have the same problems.