Welcome one and all to my blog! My name is Dawn Clemens and I have been a high school social studies teacher for the past 13 years. I am the Vice President of my local teachers union (probably more on that in the future) and I am the editor of our newsletter, Between Assignments. These three positions have shaped me as a teacher and shaped my ideas about education as a whole. As a result, I have a lot of opinions, experiences, and knowledge to share with the world of education.
Why a blog? Why me? Why now?
Teaching is my life. Seriously. I eat, breathe, and sleep teaching. I decided when I was in kindergarten that I wanted to be a teacher and I never changed my mind. It’s pretty rare to make a decision as a 5 year old and stick with it for the next 30 years but here I am. When I was 22 and had my very own classes to teach for the first time I thought that I was doing a decent job. I knew I was very far from perfect but I knew that I had the basic elements of a good teacher: I loved teaching, I loved my content, and I loved my students. I always knew that teaching was a journey and that as I continued I would gain more of the specific skills that I would need to be successful and to truly meet the needs of my students.
Each year, at the end of the year, I set goals for myself to improve on. I usually do it while the kids are taking their Regents exams or right after I’ve finished grading their exams. I need to incorporate more political cartoons, change how I teach essay writing, make sure I come up with a new system for assigning homework, etc. Each year, the list is just as long as the year before---even though I implement most of my goals the following school year. My list is always long because I’m always growing as a teacher; always trying to be the best teacher that I can be.
This year I started using Twitter as a way to expand my own personal professional development. There will certainly be a lot more on my love affair with Twitter in the future! Twitter taught me that I need to do more to improve as a teacher because there is a world out there that I was completely unaware of---and I want to be a part of it. Actually, I want my students to be a part of it too! So, I decided to start a blog to chronicle my continuing journey. Maybe I can help other teachers and maybe they can help me. Maybe people will want to hear all of my ideas or want to share their own. Maybe I just want to expand who I teach outside of my own classroom walls. I’m not totally sure. I think that possibly I just want to know that there are other people out there just like me that just can’t stop eating, breathing, and sleeping teaching.
Welcome to Clemens’ Classroom!
Why a blog? Why me? Why now?
Teaching is my life. Seriously. I eat, breathe, and sleep teaching. I decided when I was in kindergarten that I wanted to be a teacher and I never changed my mind. It’s pretty rare to make a decision as a 5 year old and stick with it for the next 30 years but here I am. When I was 22 and had my very own classes to teach for the first time I thought that I was doing a decent job. I knew I was very far from perfect but I knew that I had the basic elements of a good teacher: I loved teaching, I loved my content, and I loved my students. I always knew that teaching was a journey and that as I continued I would gain more of the specific skills that I would need to be successful and to truly meet the needs of my students.
Each year, at the end of the year, I set goals for myself to improve on. I usually do it while the kids are taking their Regents exams or right after I’ve finished grading their exams. I need to incorporate more political cartoons, change how I teach essay writing, make sure I come up with a new system for assigning homework, etc. Each year, the list is just as long as the year before---even though I implement most of my goals the following school year. My list is always long because I’m always growing as a teacher; always trying to be the best teacher that I can be.
This year I started using Twitter as a way to expand my own personal professional development. There will certainly be a lot more on my love affair with Twitter in the future! Twitter taught me that I need to do more to improve as a teacher because there is a world out there that I was completely unaware of---and I want to be a part of it. Actually, I want my students to be a part of it too! So, I decided to start a blog to chronicle my continuing journey. Maybe I can help other teachers and maybe they can help me. Maybe people will want to hear all of my ideas or want to share their own. Maybe I just want to expand who I teach outside of my own classroom walls. I’m not totally sure. I think that possibly I just want to know that there are other people out there just like me that just can’t stop eating, breathing, and sleeping teaching.
Welcome to Clemens’ Classroom!
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