7th Annual KU Composition Conference

When I attended 7th the annual KU Composition Conference, I specifically chose to attend the panel discussion because I was interested in what they had to say. I love teaching children and when I get out of college I would like to open a school of the arts for children. I thought that by going to this panel discussion I would learn a few tips for teaching. Although, The panel seemed more focused on creative writing then just teaching. The professors were more interested in giving their students a voice then in just teaching them how to write. I found that interesting because most teachers seem like they want to teach their students grammar and sentence structure. When they discussed how the public high schools constrain their teachers, I had a bit of a revelation. It never occurred to me that the schools were making the teachers teach that way, I always thought they chose to teach that way. I also never realized that public schools taught to prepare students for tests, not necessarily for learning. I was home-schooled my whole grade school career, so I never knew that was how they taught in public schools. It makes me thankful I was home-schooled because my parents were more interested in my creativity and growing as a person, then in passing tests. By being home-schooled it taught me creativity, responsibility, and learning things on my own. Those are quality that don’t seem to get included into the children’s education in public school. I find it alarming that the teachers know that the school simply wants to prepare its students for tests, and there is nothing the teachers can do about it. I could not imagine teaching children everyday knowing that I am simply preparing them to take tests, not necessarily for the real world. 

     When the discussion turned to budget cuts, as I assumed it would, I learned many new insights. I knew that the budget cuts would effect the students and their education, but I did not realize how much the budget cuts would effect teachers. The budget cuts will definitely make teaching harder, and make grading harder due to the class size.