My MEL Experiences

• Student/Teacher Relationship: One positive student/teacher relationship that stands out the most for me was with my high school Spanish teacher. She always had us doing activities to keep us busy, such as learning and performing Spanish songs in front of the whole class, but we were also keeping up with the subject material. My teacher had positive attitude and an enjoyable personality, so much so that I ended up becoming secretary of the Spanish club because of her.
• Helping Students Succeed: Some of my greatest memories of my middle school years occurred in my eighth grade science class. It was her first year teaching at the middle school, so she expected a lot out of her students and had not given up on teaching like some of my other teachers. She expected high quality work from all of us, and it was clear that she respected her students as well.
• Hands-On: My Spanish teacher is also great example for hands-on activities which she used in her classroom. Some of these activities included: playing Scrabble in Spanish, learning the Samba and salsa dances, writing and performing in our own movie- in Spanish of course, and painting based on the works of Picasso or Dali.
• Connections: Throughout middle school and most of my high school years I always thought of history as one of those subjects that you just had to memorize because it no longer relates to our lives today. However, once I had a U.S. History and Government class with Mr. Wagner, my opinion changed. He was very good at comparing his history lessons to our lives or to current events taking place around the country. Apparently history tends to repeat itself.
• Context: During my first semester of college, I had my first negative experience with a Sociology professor. He never made a connection between his lessons and the real world. He never explained or taught us how this subject would be useful for us, and by the end of the semester I did not remember one thing from the class.