Teaching Tolerance

     Before starting this blog post topic, I had never heard of the teaching tolerance website or any other website like it. While exploring the website, I found many different and useful lesson plans, videos, activities, etc. that will be helpful in teaching my students in the near future. It was neat how you could put in different parameters and it would help you to find an activity that would be best suited to what you wanted to teach and your level of students. Depending on what you want to teach and how your students learn best, it may be helpful to use a video versus hands on activity versus a independent written activity.

     I believe this website will also be helpful for me as a teacher to learn how I can teach a topic to my students that I do not feel completely comfortable taking on myself. These classes have taught me a lot about having an open mind and approaching my students and issues in an open way, but I am still nervous about dealing with these things first hand in a classroom very soon. I believe this website will be able to help me to start the conversation with my students from the beginning of the year and lead me in the right way to do the best I can to create an open, caring classroom. I hope to use this website quite a lot in my classroom and lesson planning, even as a student teacher.

A Different Religious Service

     I have gone to the same church since I was three years old, the year the church opened. I go to North Point Community Church, a non-denominational mega-church. I understand people consider my church a mega-church because of how many people go there, but for me, it feels like home. I cant walk down a hallway without seeing someone I know and saying hi or giving someone a hug. I have met many family friends and life long friendships that are going strong. Dress is very informal; jeans are definitely ok. We sing very contemporary, modern Christian music every Sunday. It is very different from traditional hymns, but most members know every word to every song even though it is different. Though it is very relaxed and unconventional, I have learned a lot feel as though North Point is home for me.

     For my blog post, I went to a catholic church. It was not a small church, but compared to North Point, it was on the smaller side. The first thing I noticed was that the dress was much more formal than my church. Jeans definitely would not have been acceptable. As I sat in the back by myself, it was very focused on rituals and doing the same thing the same way. It makes a lot of sense for me, but is very different from what I am used to. I was lost when it came to what to say, when to sit or stand, and what to do. I had no idea what to do but it gave me a chance to sit back and think what it must feel like to be completely different in my church. While I would have never done this before this class, I really feel that this was a valuable experience and that I learned a lot from this experience. This also made me think about what it will be like to have a student who practices a different religion than I do in my class in the future. I will always have students that are different than me and I need to learn how to work with people who are different then me. I have learned so much from the blog posts in this class and I am thankful that we have had to think and talk about these topics.