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My first thoughts on my dream course were that I wanted to make it realistic. I didn’t want it to be a "dream". As much as we like to dream, and hope that each of those dreams come true, it is a rarity if they ever do. I don’t mean to sound pessimistic, but the fact remains that every individual has at least one dream, and every individual has been let down because at one point a dream that they had didn’t come true. And so when completing this assignment, I tried to think of ideas and activities that I knew I could do in the classroom. I didn’t want them to never happen; I hope someday to really incorporate this elective course into the school that I am teaching at. This is how I began my thought process; from there, every time I found and/or thought of an activity, I asked myself if it was realistic. Would I be willing to spend the time and effort to make this lesson "real" in my classroom? If I wasn’t willing, I pitched the idea and kept on searching.
What I have compiled through the Job and Career Preparation course, is a series of lessons and activities that not one student can live without. Every student will search for a job, whether it is upon completion of a high school degree, or upon completion of a doctorate from college. And while searching for this job, every person must have the skills that will give him or her the ability to get hired. This includes technology skills, writing business letters, having a polished resume, and being prepared for an interview. Too often, people have been given a degree without these skills, and must teach themselves, trying to fit this into their busy routines. Unfortunately, I graduated from college with some of these skills, but not all of them. I have had to teach myself; this is what I want to try and avoid through this course. It’s not a hard task; just having the how-to knowledge when looking for and trying to get a job, can make an incredible difference. It can mean the difference between getting the job and not getting it.
I have incorporated technology into this class for the simple fact that it is everywhere and it is a necessity. We can’t escape learning it now (though some do), and each day it becomes more essential to learn. Those who refuse to learn it will be left in the dark. I don’t want my students to think they know about computers because they can use a word processing program. They should know different types of word processing programs, not to mention all different types of software programs. Most importantly, they should not blink an eye when trying to find something on the Internet. The information super highway grows bigger and bigger every day. Those that don’t know how to find information on it will eventually be on a path going no where.
The biggest thing that I want students to say after they leave this class is that they had fun. I will be their mentor only; they will more or less be the teachers in the class, helping each other to complete their projects. I will be there to guide them and to steer them, but not to give them answers. They will find the answers, or create them as they go. This is what I hope to accomplish through my so-called "dream course", one of the few dreams I have that will eventually (someday) become a reality.