Day 20: Field Trip

     So today we went on a field trip for the class I'm taking. I had an incredible day learning new things I had never known. For one, CARD in run by UF and works to provide information, and resources to teachers and parents. Although we sat in a conference room for over an hour watching a power point presentation, I loved every minute. The information gained from this experience will last me a lifetime...and I only hope to learn more.
     The fact is that as an educator, I am going to run into children on the spectrum often. I had one student on the spectrum last year. The numbers are rising, and will continue to rise. But there are so many things people don't understand about Autism, or simply just have many misconceptions. My job is to look past those misconceptions, find out about the child and teach that child using a number of strategies I have learned throughout my schooling at both UF, Santa Fe and some new things I learned today.
     Our next stop was at a local school here in Gainesville where they have a summer school program. I got to observe three amazing summer school teachers in action. (I absolutely love observing other teachers because they always teach me so much about how I want to be.) The program teaches without curriculum, and it is all hands on discovery learning in many different subjects. I saw a lesson Medieval Times, Science and even improve for middle school. Fascinating and intriguing; how teaching used to be I suppose.
     Today I feel worse than I did yesterday. My tooth pain is increasing, and my tiredness is getting worse. I am always tired! I am assuming it is because my body is no longer used to staying up late and then waking up to an alarm clock. Tonight I am going to see a friend from class for trivia, and calling it an early night. I have class again at 8am tomorrow. yay!!

Hightlight: New resrouce that I found very useful 

low-light: Tooth pain