As a teacher, my goal is to create a positive, safe, and encouraging environment inside the classroom.  Curriculum is important, but it is even more important for my students to not be afraid to be themselves. Growing up I had teachers who were role models to me, and who inspired me to do the same for my students.  The purpose of schooling is to build a child's personality to help them create a future for themselves. As future educators, we are giving students "building blocks" for them to create their future. 

I think incorporating Visual Arts in the classroom is very important. Visual arts allows students to express themselves in other ways. Firstly, they foster creativity and self-expression, allowing students to explore and communicate their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in a non-verbal way. Through artistic expression, students develop critical thinking skills as they make decisions about color, composition, and technique. Secondly, visual arts promote cultural awareness and appreciation by exposing students to diverse artistic traditions and perspectives from around the world. This helps broaden their understanding of different cultures and fosters empathy and respect for cultural diversity. Additionally, engaging in visual arts enhances students' fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, which are important for their overall development. Moreover, creating art can be therapeutic, offering students a means of processing emotions and relieving stress. Finally, incorporating visual arts in the classroom encourages interdisciplinary learning, as students can integrate art with other subjects such as history, literature, and science, fostering a deeper understanding of academic concepts. Overall, visual arts play a vital role in promoting holistic development, fostering creativity, and enriching the educational experience for students. For example this photo is from my visual arts presentation about primary and secondary colors. It goes over how certain colors look like next to others. For example the yellow in the 3rd circle looks more vibrant next to the blue than the yellow in the 5th slide. We see secondary colors when two primary colors mix in the concentric circles. This project also covers not just primary and secondary colors, but shapes as well. 

I believe that teaching science is essential in school because it fosters curiosity, critical thinking, and problem solving for students. Science helps children understand the world around them and encourages them to ask questions. During my teaching science course, I learned the importance of inquiry-based science through activities and experiments. Inquiry based science activities helps students develop a deeper understanding of scientific concepts by connecting theory to practice. 

In my introduction to teaching class, each students had to choose an article that spoke out to them the most and make a presentation explaining the article. The article I chose was "Humanizing Asian Americans in the Classroom through Children's Literature". In this article, teachers explain how to incorporate Asian American cultures in the classroom through books and activites. I really liked this article because you can do this with every race, to expand student's knowledge on other races and expand more on their own. 

I am guided through life by my values. These values include dignity, truthfulness, fairness, and responsibility. To have a responsible and respectful environment in my classroom is important to me. I want to students to feel like they belong in my classroom. To show that this is a community that is safe, where they can be themselves. Especially nowadays where school's are becoming more diverse, and students coming from different backgrounds. Being able to include diverse personalities and stories help students feel more comfortable in the classroom. My role as a teacher is also to help build a child's foundation through not only curriculum but through character. These are some values I hold close to my heart, because growing up I had many teachers who taught me life lessons that I still hold close to my heart today. Due to the impact my teacher's had on me, make me want to have to same impact for the next generation of students. 

Children learn the best when they are comfortable. Not all children will learn the same, which is why it's the teacher's job to help the student adapt to understand certain material. No matter the age, you are always learning in the classroom. In my classroom, I hope to teach and reach each student by connecting with each and every one of them. My goal is to create a student teacher relationship where I am always there to help them. 

In my opinion the curriculum is only there as a guide. Nowadays, the curriculum for many school's is very flexible. As the teacher, you make the decisions whether a certain criteria in the work is needed or not. You can also add to this to help better understand what the students need to work on. Making lesson plans that fit every child's needs.