student teacher relationships

When i think about how my previous teachers have treated me and how I want to treat my future students I get a little worried. I want to be a teacher who my students can come to with anything they need, even if it has nothing to do with my class. I also want them to see me as somebody who actually cares about them, and not just about my paycheck. My problem lies in how I will properly get to this hopeful goal. If I become too buddy buddy with my students I am afraid that they will lose respect for me and attempt to treat me like I am just one of them. On the other hand if I try to keep my teacher personality too up tight I worry that my students will not enjoy my class and will not trust me like I want them to. Where do you feel is the perfect medium between being "the cool teacher" and the teacher who nobody wants to get?

music in the classroom

In order to get the kids more excited about classes I feel like music in the classroom really works. The problem lies in what style and genre of music should be played during an educational class. What some upper level students want to listen to most likely is not acceptable in a school settinig. I believe that music during the instant activity of a class and while they are practicing their skills on their own is completely acceptable. However if music is used while the teacher is teaching, it would definitely be distracting. What do you feel about music in the classroom?

scary technology

Most of the time when I look at the new technology coming out in the world I am excited and think that the things we come up with are simply amazing. However I hear of some futuristic technology possibilities that scare me. For example I watched an episode of the Discovery Channels "Curiosity" where they spoke about all of the technology that scientists are working on that can actually make a person live forever. They spoke about how we can already grow a persons body part or organ simply by using their blood cells. This will keep all vital organs working forever. They are working on a technology that injects hormones that allow a person's body to remain fit and continue muscle growth for decades longer than we can now. They even mentioned a possible brain flash drive. Due to the fact that the human brain has a limit to its long term memory storage we will have a device that takes memories out of your head and stores them onto a computer. Things like this scare me and it makes me extremely curious as to how long until these things will be spoken about in everyday language.

slippery rock track and field

The track and field team at slippery rock is looking great this year. On the men's team it is awesome to see our coaching talking about us actually winning PSAC's. We did graduate a few great athletes but it seems like we did a good job recruiting and we have some pretty strong freshmen. I am personally most excited to see how our 4x400 meter relay will do. Last year we missed the school record by one one hundredth of a second. This year we have over six guys who will be able to run under a 50 second 400m which is awesome. I am excited to see how it turns out.